Bro my old city's opiate overdose death rates have doubled annually for several years now. I have several friends whose lives have been claimed by opiates in that span of time. It's most certainly a thing. No offense but you shouldn't talk completely out of your ass.
Epidemic may be a strong word, but the rate of opiate overdose deaths certainly does seem to be increasing, and it's likely that cracking down on the supply of pain pills is a contributing factor to this.
Yeah that and the general inclusion of fent hotspots in Heroin and the like is why overdoes have skyrocketed over the last 5+ years. And then COVID [lockdowns] in my opinion cranked the growth in ODs even higher. It was growing at something like 11% in 2019 and then in 2020 it spiked like 30% to something like 70,000 overdose deaths in the US
Here’s one, the data isn’t quite binned correctly for my argument but shows a very pronounced rise of synthetic opioid overdose deaths starting in the mid 2010s.
This comment is both unhelpful (dismisses the original claim using zero evidence) and completely incorrect.
Please look at the trendlines for "heroin deaths" and "synthetic opiod deaths" in the following graph of US CDC data, and note that from the turn of the millennium to 2017, opioid-related deaths in the US have increased more than 10x:
"Drug overdose deaths continue to increase in the United States. From 1999 to 2017, more than 702,000 people have died from a drug overdose. In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses, making it a leading cause of injury-related death in the United States. Of those deaths, almost 68% involved a prescription or illicit opioid."
Pain management may be a problem, but the opioid epidemic is very real.
Keep in kind, some of the opioid deaths are effectively suicide. They might not be classified as such but rest assured plenty of those people reach their limit and take their own lives.
The death rate from prescription opiates has not budged since 2006[1]. The vast majority of opiate overdoses in America are not prescription opiates, but illicit fentanyl, and to a lesser extent heroin and methadone. Nor do chronic pain patients face any major risk of overdose. The fatal overdose mortality rate for long-term opiate-prescribed patients is 17 per 100,000[2]. And that number doesn't exclude the subset of the population engaged in abusive behavior like mixing with alcohol, snorting pills, or hoarding medication.
Finally the sizable majority of prescription drug abusers in this country do not source from a doctor or the healthcare system at all. The vast majority get their drugs either from the black market or a friend or relative. On the National Drug Use Survey only 18% of prescription drug abusers report doctors as their primary source. And among street prostitutes (a high at-risk group) only 5%[3].
All of this goes to show that there is very little evidence of any sort of over-prescription of opiates in America. To begin with the vast majority of the opiate crisis has to do with fentanyl, not prescription drugs. But even when it comes to prescription drug abuse, the intersection with medical users is vanishingly small.
Well, i'm a doctor so part of this is an argument from authority. But arguments from authority are stupid. So here are some references:
[0] - CDC report describing epidemic in prescription opiate deaths
[1] - NIH report showing overdose deaths. the relevant stats: Since 2001, prescription opiate deaths have risen from 6000 to around 16,000. Over the same period, heroin overdoses went from 2,000 to 8,000. This data is to 2013. So there is a clear problem, and in fact prescription opiates cause significantly more deaths than heroin.
[2] - a report from closer to (my) home and region of practice detailing increases in prescription drug use in Australia and increase in opiate-related deaths secondary to this
> opiate-related deaths account for .02% of the population.
This statement is potentially misleading, since it leaves out the "per year" part. To compare it to the number of chronic pain sufferers, as you've done, you'd need to add up all the deaths of people who would otherwise still be alive.
Even just using the wild approximation of adding up the deaths in Table 27 of what you've linked (interpolating the missing 8 years with the lowest number), brings the percentage above 0.17% or almost 1 in 500.
One of the reasons for alarm is that the fatality rate has been increasing (and may even be accelerating), having more than tripled since 1999. Compare that to vehicle deaths, which have been on a downard trend, even per population.
You can make an argument that many of those opioid overdoses are due to the illegality of these drugs. People switching from pills to heroin, when they can't get pills. Heroin, or even non-opioid drugs being cut with fentanyl. People relapsing for various reasons.
BS the opioid crisis was in full swing by 2010 and began in the late 90s early 2000s that graph you have linked to shows as much. This thread sure reads as though you're keen on burying your head in the sand. The spike in heroin deaths in 2010 is because of a crackdown on pill mills and the opiate addicts having to find another fix
While "tent cities" are growing in California, a lot has changed since the early 2000s, thanks to Oxy in the late 2000s, opioid abuse is more likely in the general population, and overdoses too with fentanyl.
Overdoses were a big deal then because they were rare; thanks to Oxy though, 1 in 40 Americans abuse opioids now, overdose deaths per year have quadrupled since 1999
Not sure, but if you're suggesting these are from legal prescription pain pills, please read the article and look at CDC data. You'll note that most opiate deaths aren't from pills, but from illegal heroin, fentanyl, and carfentanyl. Pain pill prescriptions are down 40% the past 5 years, even as opiate deaths are up 40%.
Overdose is disproportionately high though[1]. I mean, take a stroll thru most American cities and you can see what a toll drug use has done to many many people.
Outside of the cities, the opioid crisis has claimed the lives of millions. I have had friends and family die from overdose and complications from over-prescription.
It’s no secret; addressing the problem would cost drug manufacturers billions, which is why nothing is being done IMO
Ironically, can't a lot of the mortality increase be attributed to the tightening of prescription opiate supply? A well intentioned measure seems to be resulting in a fair amount of people dying. Maybe the lesser evil is to just let people dope themselves up with pharmaceutical-grade controls on purity/dosage?
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