Opioids Are Now Responsible for 1 in 5 Deaths Among Young Adults

[DGUtley]

Opioids Are Now Responsible for 1 in 5 Deaths Among Young Adults. In 2016, one in 65 deaths in the United States involved opioids — and among younger adults, that number skyrocketed to one in five, according to a new study. Data has shown for years that deaths involving both prescribed and illicit opioids are rising sharply. They’ve nearly doubled since 2009, and have infiltrated all genders, demographics and geographic areas, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. The new study, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, puts some of those numbers into new perspective.

Ohio is ground zero. It's sad.

Attachment 23622

http://www.time.com/5299363/opioids-...adults-deaths/

[donttread]

Put more correctly prohibition is connected to these deaths. The theory of prohibition is to limit access. It has failed, but it has not failed to keep prices high, purities unknown and addicts living shadow lives unable to support their addiction ( like a an alcoholic or smoker can) with regular jobs. It therefore increased and fed into crime from theft to prostitution to human trafficing and of course murders over sales turf.
Prohibition that does not limit access is counter productive.

[DGUtley]

DT, I disagree. This has, IMHO, nothing to do with prohibition and everything to do with the massively addictive nature of the opioid drug. I blame the government for authorizing reimbursement under medicare/Medicaid (which exploded access) and the manufacturers for hiding the addictive nature of it. The prohibition issue can be saved for another day.

[donttread]

DT, I disagree. This has, IMHO, nothing to do with prohibition and everything to do with the massively addictive nature of the opioid drug. I blame the government for authorizing reimbursement under medicare/Medicaid (which exploded access) and the manufacturers for hiding the addictive nature of it. The prohibition issue can be saved for another day.

Your argument makes some sense in terms of pills, but not in terms of Heroin. Heroin addicts need a high percentage of the lethal dose or LD just to get high. But they cannot know the purity as it is illegal. If that illegality limited access it might be worth it. But it doesn't. Imagine drinking all night and having no way of knowing if you were ingesting weak beer or grain alcohol until someone else found you the next day.

[Common]

Opiods have a small range of purpose, the pharmaceuticals wanted wide access to make billions. So their lobbiest got politicians to make medicare their distributors, while the company reps bribed drs to prescribe them.

This epidemic is pharmaceutical produced with govt enabling, thats not to say if there were no access to prescription opiods that the heroin epidemic wouldnt get worse.

[The Xl]

Someone I knew from childhood died at 28 a few months ago because of opioids. A former classmate of mine died in 2007 at 18 years old from the same. It's a deadly game to play.

[Peter1469]

1 in 5. That is a big.

[Ethereal]

Like so many things, it is a symptom of something deeper. And, as donttread has pointed out, it has some connection to drug prohibition. In Switzerland, where they have heroin-assisted treatment clinics, overdose deaths are much lower than in other countries: Mortality in heroin-assisted treatment in Switzerland 1994-2000.

It is LONG past due that we start treating drug addiction as MEDICAL problem, not a criminal one.

[donttread]

Opiods have a small range of purpose, the pharmaceuticals wanted wide access to make billions. So their lobbiest got politicians to make medicare their distributors, while the company reps bribed drs to prescribe them.

This epidemic is pharmaceutical produced with govt enabling, thats not to say if there were no access to prescription opiods that the heroin epidemic wouldnt get worse.

Some hidden problems by these practices

1) There is no profit in researching more effective non addictive pain killers. Opiods are a problem but no one wants Tylenol the first day after open gut surgery.
2) Tramadol has been scheduled despite being far less intoxicating and addictive than say Vicodin. The question is why?
3) The FDA wages war on a softer , titratable herbal pain killer with few if any fatalities or bad reactions. Why?

[donttread]

Someone I knew from childhood died at 28 a few months ago because of opioids. A former classmate of mine died in 2007 at 18 years old from the same. It's a deadly game to play.

Pills or Heroin. I lost a daughter to heroin. A daughter who would of lived another day. a day she might have gotten sober had it not been for ineffective prohibition. The laws could not stop her from getting the drug. But they did stop her from knowing the purity.