Prescription drug abuse pushes overdose deaths higher
On the homepage of current.com today, we've got this story (clipped by user bansheewail) that "In 16 states, drug deaths overtake traffic fatalities." According to a report by the CDC, that number is for deaths back in 2006, and that's a jump over even just one year before. In 2005 only 12 states saw overdose deaths higher than traffic fatalities.
Why such a rise?
From the AP:
This heavy prescribing of prescription drugs, and the public health disaster that has resulted from it, are the subject of the first episode of our new season of Vanguard: "The Oxycontin Express". In this hour-long documentary (airing Oct. 14) Mariana van Zeller travels to one of the epicenters of the prescription drug boom: Florida. Here's a sneak peek from the episode:
Previous episodes by Mariana van Zeller
- Rebels in the Pipeline
- America's Secret War with Iran
Why such a rise?
From the AP:
While cocaine and heroin continue to be significant killers, most of the increase is attributed to prescription opiates such as the painkillers methadone, Oxycontin and Vicodin.
From 1999 to 2006, death rates for such medications climbed for every age group. Deaths from methadone alone increased sevenfold, according to the CDC.
It's not all black market stuff, either.
About half of the opiate medication deaths in King County, Wash., which includes Seattle, involved people who got their drugs through legal prescriptions, said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington research scientist.
"There has been a dramatic change in how doctors prescribe opiates," Banta-Green said.
In the 1990s, he said, doctors began recognizing that chronic pain was undertreated. The prescribing of painkillers escalated after that. Today, about one in five U.S. adults and one in 10 adolescents are prescribed an opiate each year, he said.
This heavy prescribing of prescription drugs, and the public health disaster that has resulted from it, are the subject of the first episode of our new season of Vanguard: "The Oxycontin Express". In this hour-long documentary (airing Oct. 14) Mariana van Zeller travels to one of the epicenters of the prescription drug boom: Florida. Here's a sneak peek from the episode:
Previous episodes by Mariana van Zeller
- Rebels in the Pipeline
- America's Secret War with Iran
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