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When in the late 1990s pharmaceutical companies promoted their opioid medicines, they claimed developing an addiction to painkillers wasn’t possible. Mass opioids’ adoption in health care turned out to be a fatal mistake, the consequences of which brought forth to the ongoing opioid misuse epidemic in the United States today.



Before the 1990s people used to live in a comparatively safe world, with no hidden dangers emanating from the neighborhood drug stores. The spread of opioids has shown how quickly this idyllic world can be smashed into pieces. Opioids misuse is a threat you can hardly expect, but when it comes, you cannot ignore it or easily defeat it. Every family can be the next victim.



Here are some of the shocking opioid death statistics that might get you thinking about the scale of the problem and the danger it brings.



Around 15 million people suffer from opioid and heroin abuse worldwide, with over 11 million being the opioid misusers in the United States in 2017.

In the period from 1999 to 2017, drug overdose was the reason for more than 700,000 deaths in the United States.

According to CDC data, 72,287 people died from overdoses in 2017.

While the country’s GDP growth shows only a 3.4 percent increase in the third quarter of 2018, the drugs have taken 10 percent more lives than a year before and six times more than that in 1999.

Opioids are responsible for 49,000 of deaths from the total 72,287, accounting for more than 130 Americans dying every day due to opioid abuse.

Prescription opioids are the cause of overdose deaths in 40 percent of cases.

Drug overdose now is the leading death cause for Americans, posing a higher risk than dying in a car or gun accident.

The damage starts early, with around 54 million people over the age of 12 misusing prescription drugs at some point in their lives.

The statistics indicate 25 percent of children who abused prescription drugs before they turned 13 suffered from addiction later in their lives.

Prescription opioids are third among the highest number of prescription drugs abused by high school students in 2017 with 4.2 percent, following the Adderall and 5.5 percent and tranquilizers with 4.7 percent.

Deaths of Americans over the age of 50 in about 75 percent of cases are connected to the use of opioids.





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Built on the estimates of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the financial weight of the problem is $78.5 billion per year. The costs include health care and addiction therapy, lost productivity, and legal expenses for the involvement of criminal justice.





Tragic statistics fully justify the actions taken by President Donald Trump’s administration in the direction of cutting the production quotas for drugmakers by one-third within the next several years. Opioids manufacturers, including Purdue Pharmaceuticals LP, Endo International plc, Mallinckrodt, and Johnson & Johnson, are now facing federal lawsuits holding them accountable for the promotion of what is the worst drug crisis in American history.

Addiction by Race, by State and By Gender

Geography

Despite the overall negative opioid epidemic statistics across the country, there are some hot spots with the densest abuse rates, per capita. The available data on the opioid addiction by state indicates that in 2017, the following leader states had top death rates caused by drug overdose:

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Other affected states such as Massachusetts, Montana, Wyoming, and Vermont have been slightly more efficient in fighting the overdose deaths, although they still have high mortality rates.

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Why is there such a difference in the death rates? And why do some comparatively small states like West Virginia outrun big states like Texas or Montana?

The probable reasons could be the poor health care administration and control over pharmacies, which sometimes flood small towns with drugs. Around 21 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills have been delivered to the small town Williamson in West Virginia over the past decade. In a town with a population hardly reaching 3,200 people, the number of prescribed pills equals 6.500 pills per person. It’s no wonder West Virginia's high overdose death rate has becomeis no longer a question, but an expectedable outcome.



Unfortunately, many states, not included in the high death list, are mistakenly considered less epidemic. For areas with poor statistical data collection, there might be even more danger in underestimating the level of the unfolding crisis.

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Race Factors

The problem of drug abuse can be considered in many layers and opioid addiction by race is one of them. The data from the National Vital Statistics System indicates that the majority of overdose deaths happened in a white non-Hispanic population, among American Indians, and among Alaska natives; in some states, these ethnic groups exceed 90 percent of the overall overdose mortality. According to the CDC report from 2016, the fatality rate caused by drug overdose (per 100,000) was 25.3 for white non-Hispanic people, 17.1 for the black population, and 9.5 for Hispanics. In other words, whites have a 50 percent greater chance to die from an overdose than African Americans, and a 167 percent more chance than Hispanics. Statistics, though, cannot tell the full story, due to the lack of sufficient data.

Nevertheless, there are several tendencies we can outline.

Opioids can be rightfully considered the primary cause of drug-related deaths among all races/ethnic communities.

While cocaine is a leading drug of the black population, psychostimulants play a key role among the Native Americans.

Asians and Islanders have the lowest drug rate among all races.

Deaths caused by drug mixtures are usually assigned to the categories of all drugs presented in the mixture, distorting the overall statistics. The drug tragedies are still increasing, and so far they impact whites the most.





Gender Tendencies

According to the World Drug Report 2018, the majority of drug users are still men, but women also have certain addiction patterns. In fact, men and women share the same level of non-medical abuse of opioids and tranquilizers, but in some areas, women prevail. While women generally adopt drug habits in older age, they tend to rapidly increase their consumption rate of all substances involved (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and opioids) and develop drug-related disorders earlier than men.





Opioid death statistics reveal the American tragedy of the 21st century. Despite all the efforts to educate and warn people of the danger they’re facing, opioid misuse is still a big problem. The U.S. government is still looking for a solution to reduce opioid addiction once and for all.

Reducing Opioid Abuse

The primary focus of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently these five main priorities:

Availability of drug treatment and recovery aimed at prevention of multiple drug addiction side effects and achievement of long-term recovery.

Promotion of overdose-reversing medicines to people who might need them at some point of their opioids’ treatment.

Improvement of public health awareness by providing timely and actual data aimed at the prevention of potentially lethal cases.

Innovative research on pain treatment, addiction prevention, and recovery with a deeper understanding of pain and new possible ways of its effective management.

Careful pain management.



In the summer of 2017, the National Institutes of Health arranged a meeting with a representative of pharmaceutical companies and research centers to address the following points:



Safe and effective measures to ease chronic pain without further addiction.

New medicines and technologies able to treat drug-related disorders.

Overdose prevention strategy and reversal therapy.



Some achievements have been made thanks to the CDC’s Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) program. It’s the top goal is in ensuring the improved reporting of deadly and non-fatal opioid overdoses, as well as the potential factors influencing public health responses across the country.



Among the most prominent initiatives is the creation of the prescription drug monitoring program (PDMPs). It brings multiple components of modern pharmacy into a digital world, enabling total control over all legally accessible substances. The information is shared with hospitals and private health centers, pharmacies, and law enforcement offices, making them both active participants in reducing the rates of drug distribution and defeating addiction and simultaneously holding them responsible for the part they’re intended to play.

In 2017, 1.5 million physicians and health care professionals have joined state PDMPs. Moreover, 22 of the 49 states have legally enforced the medical staff to query the system before writing a prescription for the potentially misused substance. The program keeps the historic records of the prescriptions made to every patient and has proved to be an effective tool in reducing the number of prescription opioids abuse. Unfortunately, the overdose death rates have not been affected by the program. Nevertheless, this is only the first step on a road to the greater results providing the state and local governmental institutions with helpful insight on the nature and tendencies of current drug addiction.



Only by uniting the nation and mobilizing all governmental and private, state, and local institutions, American people can ensure that our future would be clear, with no opioid vail covering those who fell victims of substances created by our own hands.







