Bloomberg pledges $120 million to curb drug overdose deaths

By ALEX DANIELS of The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Chronicle of Philanthropy

Michael Bloomberg will spend $120 million in an effort to reduce the soaring numbers of deaths from drug overdoses, he announced today at a healthcare summit he organized. The pledge more than doubles the $50-million philanthropic commitment he made toward the same goal in 2018. Bloomberg’s pledge follows a preliminary finding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 93,000 people had died from drug overdoses in 2020, the majority of them from using opioids. The number of deaths during the first calendar year of the pandemic grew 30% over the total for 2019 and is the highest for a single year on record.