This month, Rolling Stone published a letter by the ex-wife of American musician Scott Weiland, who overdosed on drugs, titled “Scott Weiland’s Family: ‘Don’t Glorify This Tragedy.'” USA Today recently highlighted parents of an 18-year-old girl who died after a heroin overdose because they used her obituary to raise awareness about opioid addiction. Opioids are involved in 61% of all drug overdose deaths. It’s an epidemic that claimed the lives of more than 47,000 Americans.
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More people died from drug overdoses in the United States last year than any other year on record.
OH had the second-highest number of drug overdose deaths nationwide in 2014, a number that’s soaring, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday. “In 2014, there were approximately one and a half times more drug overdose deaths in the United States than deaths from motor vehicle crashes”.
The CDC says since 2000, the country has seen a 200 percent increase in overdose deaths caused by opioids.
“The increasing number of deaths from opioid overdose is alarming”, CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement.
The dramatic increase in overdoses does not appear to be limited to any particular group, with increases among both men and women, non-Hispanic whites and blacks, and adults nearly all ages.
The states with the highest rates of overdose were West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio. According to the CDC, the increase in synthetic opioid deaths coincided with increased reports by law enforcement of illicitly manufactured fentanyl. “In addition, efforts are needed to protect persons already dependent on opioids from overdose and other harms”.
Prescription painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine are derived from the same poppy plants as heroin.
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More than that, people addicted to opioids should have access to treatment, including access to naloxone, a drug that can reverse the symptoms in case of an opioid overdose. CDC believes that the health professionals must be equipped with more resources and tools, as well as be more capable to give better prescription guidelines, to help patients make more informed decisions. It suggested public health agencies, medical examiners and coroners, and law-enforcement agencies work collaboratively to improve the detection of these outbreaks through improved investigation and testing.
