On a sweltering day during the hottest June on record in Phoenix, a 38-year-old man collapsed under a freeway bridge, and a 41-year-old woman was found slumped outside a business.
Both had used methamphetamine before dying from a mix of soaring temperatures and stimulants.
Meth is increasingly showing up as a factor in heat-related deaths across the U.S., according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Death certificates indicate that about one in five heat-related deaths in recent years involved methamphetamine. In Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and California, officials found the drug in nearly a third of heat deaths in 2023.
As a stimulant, methamphetamine raises the body temperature, …