You will find more infographics at Statista
Deaths from drug overdoses continue to rise in the United States, killing 72,000 people this year alone, a 10 percent increase over the past year. The number of people who have died from overdosing is now higher than the death tolls for HIV, car crashes, or gun deaths at the peaks of their respective crises.
The upshot in these deaths is indicative of two central problems: an increase in users and stronger drugs. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, can be easily added to other drugs such as heroin or synthetic marijuana creating a more severe concoction. Synthetic opioids are also easier to transport and harder to detect, making them easier to incorporate into the illicit drug supply chain.
The prevalence and prominence of synthetic opioids in drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, and benzodiazepines, falls along regional lines. In the East and Midwest heroin tends to be processed into a white powder, making it easier to mix with fentanyl or other synthetic opioids, while in the West heroin is processed differently making it harder to slip lethal, synthetic opioids into these other drugs.
I live in Manatee County, Florida. We had the highest per capita drug overdose death rate in the state right after the DEA and state shut down the pill mills that dispensed Rx pain killers to anyone who could feign a back injury and get doctor to prescribe pills to treat their condition. It wasn’t pretty but an addict only had to come up with $200 for a monthly doctors visit and a few hundred dollars more for their monthly pill supply ( which they could recoup by selling a portion of their pills on the black market. The addicts had pharmaceutical grade drugs of known dosage.
That all changed after the pill mills were shut and some of the prescribing doctors indicted. It scared off other doctors from prescribing oxycodone too and pharmacies stopped stocking it as addicts started robbing the pharmacies. This left the addicts no choice but to either quit abusing opioids or buy heroin ( often laced with fentanyl) from street dealers. Guess what choice they made?
Thus the trade in narcotics moved from legitimate ( if sleazy) pharmaceutical companies and doctors who paid taxes on their considerable profits to drug gangs who didn’t and the number of fatal overdoses soared.
Now contrary to my own view and theories, the number of fatal overdoses has collapsed over the past year. Even the number of non fatal overdoses had fallen and not just because narcan is now carried by police and EMTs and a new law that exempts from criminal prosecution anyone who reports an overdose in progress.
It seems the police have made real progress in arresting the drug dealers and suppliers in the area who were supplying the heroin and fentanyl. I’d be curious to learn if other communities with a big opioid problem are seeing a similar decline or if the Manatee/Sarasota police efforts are just a local success.
Legalize and tax? Like weed? Get them pill mills up and running. I’d suport that
I think i have the solution. Dont do drugs. Or, at a minimum, dont do potentially fatal drugs.
Failing that, why should i care? Honestly its more crime prevention if they are allowed to follow their chosen path. I dont want to pay for their narcan, nor their incarceration. Death doing what you love, i mean, what could be better? Better for everyone.
The problem is, until addicts die or are put in prison ( and they don’t typically get multi year prison terms for illegal drug use) they have to support their habit. Under the pill mill system an addict only had to come up with around $500 per month to get 150 to 180 30 mg oxycodone pills. They could sell 20 or 30 of them for $500 to fund their next months supply.
With heroin they may have to come up with $100 per day to buy their illegal drugs. They raise this by shoplifting, burglaries and credit card fraud and scams.
Thank you DEA and the “War on Drugs”.
GOOD JOB.
Whenever you hear “War on…” you know the fix is in.
Exactly– war on non-specific concepts is always a disaster. “War on poverty”, “war on terror”, “war on drugs”… unless we can win a “war on self-destructive human behavior” they are just gigantic money holes…….
Yeah, right on! They haven’t won a single declared war since WWII. Not on drugs, crime, poverty, nuthin’. They’re also not too hot on their non-wars, like Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I and II and III, Afcrapistan, Syria, Libya, etc. I wonder what results they would get if they declared peace on something?
I am sure there are many that have experienced the sad case of a loved one strung out after some botched medical issue and the eventual cut off of pain relievers leaving them in pain and desperate for relief still many more with a loved one that stole your rent money or your kids Christmas present to hock to get high . These junkies who climbed on the addiction train to a dead end of their own volition I have little pity for . Typically they have violated every decent human interaction and relationship attempting to help them and finally the shot up one hot dose to that true dead end . Generally this is after many intervention attempts at huge costs to families and taxpayers .
It’s time for some tough love EMT’s show up with a narcam once you get a forced dry out 30 day jail sentence twice 90 days and an ankle bracelet third time we send the sanatation department to take your carcass to the dump where if you body is not claimed in 24 hours it is incinerated . No more ATF drug task force , court system this drug culture economy will die by its own hand just let it operate freely unincumbered .
If you want to make a difference open up your house your bank account your effort . Our countries tax structure and public expendentures are not to be continually pissed away on lost causes . This is where the clergy and church groups could step in .
I will be submitting your excellent solution to my feckless Democrat run state(NH) auspices. I am sure they will be shocked, outraged and immediately turn down this great idea. Especially since they all make so much money on the suffering. Kudos to you, Boat Guy, you get it.
“The War on ______” are always govt disasters. Here’s an idea-get the CIA o stop importing tons of heroin every year.
Legalize it all,end the cop/court/prison/drug cartels and war on our rights.Those that say drive under ect. are then imprisoned as a threat to others,otherwise,tis your life.I rather addicts get their stuff cheap and stop stealing/dealing to feed addiction,really non of my business if you do drugs/drink/get fat as hell/do extreme sports ect.,tis YOUR life.
As one who has tried to help others with addictions(friends and family),well,keep trying but accept they may die,sucks,just the truth.That said,they ask for a ride to a rehab/meeting/what have you and you have time go for it,won this battle only once so far with friend but was worth the effort.
It’s shitty how big employers are blaming the drug problem for not being able to hire when the truth is about the opposite- the drug problem is at least in part a side effect of the hopelessness of not being able to get a decent job. All the while these shitbags lobby CON-gress to have more cheap foreign workers brought in furthering the cycle. After all, too many of us are ‘just a white guy’.
If they could make you work for free they would.
We are already working for free. It is called tax, and many of us work for many months of the year for free.
Llpoh
These deaths individually are a tragedy to the families concerned.
En total, the nation is better off. Over seventy thousand fewer thieves, robbers, muggers on the streets. Thank yew, thank yew very much.
And chronically mentally ill who will never get better.
So what?
This is not a problem; this is a solution.
It’s like AIDS: at first, thousands of homosexuals got sick and died, then the numbers began to decline. Like the forest fires, protect the buildings and then worry about the trees that are going to burn someday anyway.