Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
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Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#2When I opened this, I thought they meant 72000 on the whole world. Nope, it's just the US. That's an unbelievably high number to me.
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#3I cannot but wonder if North Americans feel responsible in the least for what their voracious appetite for drugs is doing south of the US border. Mexico has become almost ungovernable, the drug trade being one of the main factors driving the decline.
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#4When I opened this, I thought they meant 72000 on the whole world. Nope, it's just the US. That's an unbelievably high number to me.
It's staggering! I just compared with traffic accident fatalities in 2017 and it's 40,200 (according to [1]). It hadn't occurred to me that drugs were a bigger killer than traffic accidents. Now maybe there's a big overlap over the two figures?
Edit: just realized the drug death count is only for ODs, so the overlap wouldn't be significant.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#5I cannot but wonder if North Americans feel responsible in the least for what their voracious appetite for drugs is doing south of the US border. Mexico has become almost ungovernable, the drug trade being one of the main factors driving the decline.
The appetite for drugs or the criminalization that creates the black market? Heavy drug users have more immediate concerns than second and third order effects of their lifestyle choices. The politicians and lobbyists responsible for maintaining the status quo on the other hand, should probably pull their heads out of their asses.
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#6I cannot but wonder if North Americans feel responsible in the least for what their voracious appetite for drugs is doing south of the US border. Mexico has become almost ungovernable, the drug trade being one of the main factors driving the decline.
I think a large number of those drug overdoses are legal drugs that come from big pharma. The abusers of those drugs certainly don't feel anything about the Meican drug trade.
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#7The amount of responsibility laundering that's happening is staggering. Is it the fault of the doctors for prescribing strong painkillers or the responsibility of lobbyists for keeping the status quo as it is. Or is it the responsibility of patients to not seek strong opiates for the smallest aches?
On whom falls the blame for this?
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#8I cannot but wonder if North Americans feel responsible in the least for what their voracious appetite for drugs is doing south of the US border. Mexico has become almost ungovernable, the drug trade being one of the main factors driving the decline.
The appetite for drugs or the criminalization that creates the black market? Heavy drug users have more immediate concerns than second and third order effects of their lifestyle choices. The politicians and lobbyists responsible for maintaining the status quo on the other hand, should probably pull their heads out of their asses.
I am sure a widescale decriminalization of hard drugs south of the US border will be applauded in Washington. It would solve a large part of the drug crime problems in these countries, while raining down industrial quantities of pharmaceutical grade heroin on the US streets.
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#9Thanks big pharma!
Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017
#10The amount of responsibility laundering that's happening is staggering. Is it the fault of the doctors for prescribing strong painkillers or the responsibility of lobbyists for keeping the status quo as it is. Or is it the responsibility of patients to not seek strong opiates for the smallest aches? On whom falls the blame for this?
You forgot to mention the drug manufacturers like Purdue, which aggressively promoted their opioids (e.g., Oxycontin) as presenting only a very low risk of addiction and abuse.