On one 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 an increasingly dangerous mix of soaring temperatures and stimulants.
Meth is showing up more often as a factor in the deaths of people who died from heat-related causes in the U.S., according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Death certificates show 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…