Opioid addiction is now considered an epidemic in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control says the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids — prescribed painkillers and heroin — increased 200 percent between 2000 and 2014. 47,055 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2014. 61 percent involved opioids. Increasingly, the abuse of prescription opioids are seen as a gateway to heroin use.
The Congress is acting. The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation to fight the epidemic in March. Tuesday, the House began passing a series of bills aimed at doing the same thing.
Pain is deeply personal issue. Is it physical or emotional? What’s your pain threshold? What medicine will work best?
The question now: is the cure killing more than just the pain?
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Pain of Opioids
Posted May 11th, 2016 at 5:13 pm (UTC-4)
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Oxycontin: How Purdue Pharma Helped Spark the Opioid Epidemic
Posted April 22nd, 2016 at 12:27 pm (UTC-4)
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In the first decade of this century, the overdose death rate increased nearly four times, with admissions to addiction treatment programs up six times over the same time period. Prescription opioids now kill more Americans every year than illegal ones.
Bridges to Care, not Incarceration
[T]his went further than the community policing philosophy dating back to the early 1980s where educating community members and creating neighborhood watches would complement police patrols; where foot patrol would be increased with a commitment to be more accountable to the citizens they serve…