Deaths from Drug Overdoses and Automobile Accidents, US (annual)
Source (Boston Globe)
Opioid deaths are one reason that the US has been less successful at increasing life expectancy than other high income countries. Drug abuse deaths -mostly from opiods, surpassed motor vehicle accidents as a cause of deaths in the US last year. These deaths are disproportionately concentrated in distressed communities - including inner cities (the ones that haven't been gentrified) and poor rural areas, especially those which have suffered from manufacturing collapse.
Even these statistics about the opioid epidemic and its impact are don't tell the whole depressing story. Many of the premature deaths among those addicted come from infectious diseases related to needle use - and these are not likely to be counted in the graphic above. I blogged about a disheartening New Republic story in 2014 entitled "Public Health and Health Care Financing Choices Made AIDS an American Disease."
Opioid addiction is terrible - it changes the brain - and simply invoking willpower won't possibly be enough to help most addicts. The criminalization of drug abuse has led addicts to share needles - with deadly results. The US is alone among developed countries to be reluctant to provide needle exchange - despite overwhelming evidence that this can decrease transmission of HIV and hepatitis and other blood borne diseases.
The Washington Post published an important article about drug abuse earlier this week The hot spots for opioid addictions (which are mostly in deep red Appalachia and the midwest) are pretty much exactly where needle exchanges are least likely to be located. This is good reason why we need an effective, evidence-based national approach to public health challenges like IV drug abuse.
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