Drug Overdoses Now Second Leading Cause of Death

The Centers for Disease Control reveal an alarming trend in drug abuse, both in legal and illegal drugs: accidental drug overdose has become the number one cause of death for adults ages 35-54, and is now the second leading cause of death in America.

“In the last twenty years, accidental overdose deaths have risen sharply,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director of the Atlanta Recovery Center. “Many prescription drug painkillers are now being used at home, whereas in the past these were used primarily in hospitals. Without the proper medical supervision, it has been too easy for people to overmedicate themselves, become drug addicted, and die of an overdose.

“This also creates an unsafe environment for children as these medications are often within easy reach, sometimes forgotten. Would you keep a loaded gun or rat poison in the medicine cabinet? Of course not, yet having heavy prescription drugs within easy reach of teens or smaller children is just that: an accident waiting to happen.”

One school of thought to help curb this problem is that of harm reduction.

Proponents of the harm reduction approach to drug addiction promote that teaching drug addicts how to use drugs safely is the best approach to curb the negative effects of drug abuse. 

However, it seems unlikely that persons in the throes of addiction, and frequently high, will be the best of students.  

Harm reduction programs do nothing to change the way addicts behave.  Methadone is a prime example. Methadone clinics operate as a business; they receive incentives from the drug manufactures as well as income from their clients.  The clients are chained like a ball and chain to the clinic – if they miss their daily visit they are beset with withdrawal.  They are still alive, through harm reduction, but it is hardly a life worth living for some.

 According to CDC medical epidemiologist Leonard J. Paulozzi:

“One might assume that the increase in drug overdose deaths is due to an increased use of street drugs like heroin and cocaine, because we have in the past associated such drugs with overdoses. However …we found that street drugs were not behind the increase. The increase from 1999 to 2004 was driven largely by opioid analgesics (painkillers), with a smaller contribution from cocaine, and essentially no contribution from heroin. The number of deaths in the narcotics category that involved prescription opioid analgesics increased from 2,900 in 1999 to at least 7,500 in 2004, an increase of 160 percent in just five years. By 2004, opioid painkiller deaths numbered more than the total of deaths involving heroin and cocaine in this category.”

The best insight and ultimate answers to drug addiction would most likely come from families who have either lost a loved one to addiction or families who have gotten the family member back from drug addiction and back into life.  These are people who have been through it and will care.  They should be included in any serious studies that are actually looking for solutions.

It is going to take some compassion to really address the suffering extant in this country because of drug addiction.