More Americans now die from drug overdose than from any other cause of injury death.
I’m cruising the roads of North Carolina, listening to NPR, when some public health professional says: “For the first time in American history, drugs are killing more people than car crashes and shootings.”
Damn. Those working to cleanse our country of its drug addiction certainly have their new battle cry.
Upon research I found that, according to the CDC, death by drug overdose has been rising since 1992. Here’s the 2010 comparison:
Drug Overdose: 38,329
Traffic Accidents: 33,687
Firearms: 31,672
Falling: 26,852
In an article titled “America, It’s Time For An Intervention,” Meghan Ralston, harm reduction manager for the Drug Policy Alliance, said the following:
“Good Samaritan and naloxone access laws are important first steps in tackling the overdose problem. But much more is needed, such as integrating overdose prevention into existing drug education programs.”
Naloxone access laws? Overdose prevention? That’s all fine and dandy but it seems to be missing the cultural component. The way we grab for pills at the slightest problem, the way thousands upon thousands of our brilliant college graduates enter Big Pharma to work not on issues like malaria or cancer but on pushing or developing drugs that prevent balding or numb the feeling of hunger or allow a man “to last” for two hours instead of 90 minutes. We need to reframe our minds as to what a drug dealer looks like. As of now, it’s the dude on the street corner. But perhaps we should make some room to include the college grad in cap and gown.
Among high school students, the University of Michigan found that Vicodin was the second-most abused drug after marijuana. Pair this with the alarming rate at which babies are born with withdrawal-like symptoms and how 15% of students in grades 9 through 12 admit to prescription drug abuse, and it’s clear we’ve got a problem that, according to the CEO of The Partnership at DrugFree.org, is…
“…not getting better. In fact, it’s getting deeper and more complex.”
What initiatives out there are working? What are some ways we can put a dent in this problem? We need a wholly different kind of War on Drugs — one that helps an entire society pivot the way it ingests not only drugs but information from the Big Pharma-backed media, politicians, reps and “healthcare” professionals who influence and validate their use.
–Photo: massdistraction/Flickr
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Prescription drug abuse is the one that is more common with grown people, race and sex is not so much the issue. Plenty of script abuse in the ‘hood along with everywhere else…….appalachia has tons o’ script abuse……As does the upper east + upper west sides of manhattan…….as does the gold coast of Long Island
Prescription drug abuse is a term that separates drug abuse by good white rich people from drug abuse committed by poor black people.
You can be prescribed any drug that you want.
I appreciate your overall message, but I would like to challenge this part: “[T]he way thousands upon thousands of our brilliant college graduates enter Big Pharma to work not on issues like malaria or cancer but on pushing or developing drugs that prevent balding or numb the feeling of hunger or allow a man “to last” for two hours instead of 90 minutes. ” You are describing people who have worked impossibly hard to get PhDs and MDs from top programs, and suggesting that their hard work and creativity is value-less because it fails to live up to your own… Read more »
any numbers on how many of those 38k overdoses are intentional or perhaps intentional? living with lifelong pain can become interminable in its experience. it can shade every other factor of your life.
Opiates are rather addictive by their very nature, fitting cleanly into a person’s own pain/sensation management system to the degree that, with chronic use your own native level of endorphin production drops. Yet Because of which they manage pain better than almost anything else. I don’t see an easy fix, due to us aging boomers hitting the steep declining years where aches and pains multiply and treatment options narrow due to cardiovascular and other issues with most of the non opiate pain management drugs. The cultural issue is that of a rebellious cohort that had way too much fun abusing… Read more »