In 16 states, drug deaths overtake traffic fatals

[cigsandcoffee]

Source: AP-Yahoo News

ATLANTA – In 16 states and counting, drugs now kill more people than auto accidents do, the government said Wednesday.

Experts said the startling shift reflects two opposite trends: Driving is becoming safer, and the legal and illegal use of powerful prescription painkillers is on the rise.

For decades, traffic accidents have been the biggest cause of injury-related death in the U.S., and they are still No. 1. But drug overdoses are pulling ahead in one state after another.

"People see a car accident as something that might happen to them," said Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But as for death from a drug overdose, "maybe they see it as something that's not going happen to them."


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_he_me/us_med_drug_deaths

[Maeve]

1. From the article--the list of states

"The number of states in which drug-related deaths have overtaken traffic fatalities has gone from eight in 2003 to 12 in 2005, and 16 in 2006. They are: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington."

[imdjh]

5. I see a lot of arrests here for prescription drug crime, and I don't get it.

Yes, there are some fun prescription drugs, but you never see anyone arrested for them. The fun prescription drugs in my book would be Librium, Demerol, and various stimulants, sometimes in combination. But what do you read about? Oxycontin and Oxycodone. BORING. Not only do these drugs suck, if you take enough of them to "enjoy it" (assuming you like being a potted plant) they will make you feel nauseated or constipated.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Noticably missing from chart: marijuana deaths.

Why is pot illegal?

Also missing: alcohol deaths and tobacco deaths.

Why is that?

Why are we being lied to so consistently and so pervasively?

[Stumbler]

4. My thoughts exactly

If I'm not mistaken, it still reigns supreme at 0 deaths. And when it's finally decriminalized, many people will be able to put down those harmful synthesized pharma drugs in favor of this safer alternative.

[NOW tense]

3. I wonder who was behind a published report in the 90's

saying chronic pain was under treated?

[Patiod]

9. The Pain Society

I've talked to the founder. A 100% true-blue honest doctor, who is particularly concerned about end-of-life pain control, as he should be. And it was supported by the people in the hospice movement. End-of-life pain control is so vitally important - I'm living with an example of why every day -- my elderly dad wants to die when his chronic pain isn't controlled, and yet when it IS controlled (steroid injections, not narcotics), he is a wonderful old guy, doing some great work for charity. Chronic pain is often undertreated.

Having said that in defense of pain being treated adequately:

If you look into Perdue Pharma, who makes Oxycontin, their sales force was particularly egregious in pushing that crap for every little ache and pain, and they've been slapped (not enough in my opinion) by the FDA for it. I don't know this, but I suspect Perdue also supported the GOOD work of the Pain Society, but not for the right reasons. Which is the excellent point I think you are making, NOW tense.

Just wanted to remind people that this topic is not black-and-white. As a (former) hospice volunteer, I'm all about chronic pain control. But as someone who watched my dad get very, very sick from Oxycontin, I've learned to hate some of these drugs. (Also, one of my friend's business partners got hooked on it after his knee surgery, and the guy almost killed himself - literally almost committed suicide - bad, bad stuff).

[griz2008]

12. Chronic Pain

I've suffered from chronic pain for 20 years. Respectfully, you don't know what it was like to live with pain, go through the 'try this,try that', when a simple opioid did the job most effectively.

3 points are never talked about these days:

1. They come out with new 'treatments' all the time, to date all have either serious side effects or addiction potential higher than opiates (Ultram, Lyrica). Half the time, they KILL you (Bextra, Vioxx anyone?). Did I mention these new classes of drugs are generally far less effective in the area of actually relieving pain?

2. A significant portion of the pharmaceuticals illicitly used are stimulants, generally the stimulants used to treat ADHD. Like Straterra, Ritalin, Vyvinase, and other drugs that have Star Trek Villain names.

3. Every time one of these articles comes out, there's a public scare that causes doctors to start worrying about their jobs, so they cave to pressure from both big pharma (who love to market new, expensive drugs) and the DEA (whose main job seems to be make-work)meaning they become unwilling to prescribe effective, relatively safe medications.


Seriously, the general public gets scared and buys into fox news style propaganda so readily.

All medications have a risk, it's up to the patient to decide whether they want an effective if unpopular drug, or a less effective new drug that hasn't got the wrinkles all figured out yet.

Last point: Opiates work for me. I stay at a constant dose, and the side effects are so much milder than the bajillion other medications doctors have pushed on me. It always makes me laugh to myself when a Doctor tells me that Opiates are habit-forming, thus bad, then proceed to prescribe me something that I have to build up then taper off of for fear of severe illness.

I think if you can't stop taking a med or you'll get sick, that is the same as addiction, the difference being that in an 'addiction' (at least the Oprah Winfrey version) the drug you're taking actually DOES SOMETHING for the pain.

It's easy for the person who isn't in pain to tell someone else they have to suffer through life in that condition because other people can't handle their drugs.

[NOW tense]

13. You are right, I don't live with pain everyday

My experience with Oxycodone was only from having ACL replacement surgery. It made me crazy, I thought people were going to come into my house and hurt me. I felt like I was loosing my mind.

[paulsby]

6. there is also no MADD equivalent for drugs

not one that has had the level of success in both public opinion influence and legislative influence.

[imdjh]

8. If someone comes up with a drug breathalyzer attitudes might change.

Around here, we just assume that people are on prescribed drugs.

[imdjh]

7. I'm surprised it isn't higher and not just illegal prescription drugs. Prozac zombies ought...

... to be showing up in the figures. Prozac and similar drugs were really big in the late 90's, legally prescribed. At the cube farm where I worked, there were these people who just sat there and worked, and put one foot in front of the other day in and day out, I couldn't even tell you their names because it was like they didn't really exist, except when they were wandering in your way. Seriously medicated people, barely conversational, unpredictable responses if responsive. And to think that all of those people left that building and floated into their cars at 5PM, it's a wonder.

[FarCenter]

10. Some of these are likely to be suicides

The suicide statistics for suicide by poison seem pretty low compared with other means of suicide.

Probably a lot of suicides by drugs are just classified as drug overdose.

[AlienGirl]

16. Very likely, especially since "accidental OD" can have life insurance payout and suicide can't

Also considering that people who are in chronic pain and/or very ill and are prescribed the pain medication may intentionally overdose to get out of pain. Overall, the suicide rate is going up because of the hard times and despair; and since "everybody knows" that an opiate OD is fairly painless and certain, it would not be surprising if people are using prescription opiates they bought on the street as a suicide method.

Tucker

[Gregorian]

11. Why isn't nicotine on that chart! It's a drug. It kills fifty times what those do.

What a joke. America has been duped. Drugs! Wrong. Propaganda is more like it. I'm still seething over what was done to us over that phony drug war. And I don't do drugs. It was a lie, and a violation of our civil rights.

Booooooo! I call bs!

[FarCenter]

15. Nicotine is not particularly dangerous -- it's the other chemicals in the smoke that cause cancer

[Romulox]

14. Why isn't alchohol listed on the chart?

:shrug: