U.S. Losing War on Drugs: 29% Increase in Drug Deaths in Latest Year

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

More than 87,000 Americans died of drug overdoses over the 12-month period that ended in September, according to preliminary federal data, eclipsing the toll from any year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s…
The preliminary data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 29 percent rise in overdose deaths from October 2019 through September 2020 — the most recent data available — compared with the previous 12-month period. Illicitly manufactured fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were the primary drivers, although many fatal overdoses have also involved stimulant drugs, particularly methamphetamine.

While this is still less than the 480,000 deaths caused by tobacco and 95,000 deaths caused by alcohol, does anyone have any thoughts which should be done?

For example massively tightening up of doctor’s opioid prescribing can hurt a lot of people who suffer from serious pain problems (although certainly those doctors who are basically legal drug dealers should be locked up).

2

I’m leery of over-reacting to 2020 stats. Murder rates are up. The pandemic is a statistical outlier I would say.

What does the curve look like from 2010 to 2019?

3

I’m in agreement with W_E (I always think this is funny, since most people I know use that as ‘whatever’), in that we have a lot of factors that are aggravated by the pandemic, and we’ll be seeing them as ongoing concerns for probably at least a few years on. For that matter, on two different but related notes -

Which is just a single small study, but found 60% of those involved reported increased drinking (and 13% did less), which I find to be pretty consistent with the reporting on this board - most people drink more, but some did less as they were ‘social’ drinkers - they didn’t drink at home, it was an activity shared by friends.

The line I felt most pertinent to me from the study was this one - “Reasons for increased drinking included increased stress (45.7%), increased alcohol availability (34.4%), and boredom (30.1%)” We are drinking away our stress (since we have limited options to reduce our risk), because we are home more, and, well, the last one is self evident.

I suspect that if we had good numbers regarding legal and illegal drug use beyond the fatalities, we’d see a similar spread in terms of increased use and with similarities in reasons. Anecdotally, I know several associates (friends of friends and a few co-workers) here in Colorado who are recreationally users of MJ.

Prior to the pandemic, they generally bought their supplies, but as it is legal to grow your own legally in limited quantities, their reaction was to do so. A few got bored with it, but some have become ‘home grown’ enthusiasts. And they also reported a noticeable increase in usage along the lines above.

Okay, back to the article you cite -

The biggest jump in overdose deaths took place in April and May, when fear and stress were rampant, job losses were multiplying and the strictest lockdown measures were in effect.

Many treatment programs closed during that time, at least temporarily, and “drop-in centers” that provide support, clean syringes and naloxone, the lifesaving medication that reverses overdoses, cut back services that in many cases have yet to be fully restored.

So yes, I think they’re clear it’s an outlier. But the ‘downstream’ effects are going to be with us for a long time to come, so I’d want to watch the trends.

4

Anything that disrupts availability can force the addict to look for alternatives. They might change suppliers or have to move to a harder version of the class of drug they desire. They might change toward more dangerous habits to “make it last”. So they start injecting rather then smoking or snorting.

5

A good start would be to stop calling it “War on Drugs”. It is not a war. It is a very bad metaphor.
(Just as an aside: Can you think of a war after WWII a country could honestly claim to have won?)
I still believe after all those years that legalizing drugs would rather help. Yes, including the so called hard drugs. Not worth arguing about, as it is not going to happen. But I cannot believe the situation would be much worse than it is now. And you only mentioned the deaths of US-users, add to that the economic ruin of the producer countries, the mafia drugs create, the corruption of whole societies (including yours), the ecological damage… But it is not going to happen.

6

Pardel-Lux has a good point. Last time there was a “War on Alcohol”, it didn’t turn out all that well.

On the prevention side, in this modern data driven age, script docs should be red flagged pretty dang quickly.

Just an ancedote. I’ve got a college kid with tested and diagnosed ADHD. They are finding it really difficult to find a doctor to prescribe Ritalin or something equivalent because college kids frankly abuse the diagnosis. It seems far easier to get prescription opioids…

7

A harm reduction policy would probably be best at this point.

Give addicts access to pharmaceutical grade heroin so they stop buying street stuff that could have fentanyl in it. Give people easy access to testing kits to make sure they aren’t taking synthetic opiates.

8

Here’s some charts about annual drug deaths in the U.S. since 1999. One year does not show what the trend is. It certainly doesn’t show that “we’re losing the war on drugs” just by itself. Trends in this sort of thing should look over at least five years. This is especially true when that one year is exceptional for various reasons:

9

Right, it is really a war on the American people themselves.

10

always has been. it’s a war against Chinese immigrants, Mexican immigrants, black people and hippies/counterculture types.

11

The massive number of drug deaths continues to increase:

or if you have paywall problems:

https://archive.md/EaabW

12

One every five minutes and 15 seconds. Sorry, I can’t avoid making this tipe of calculation when I see those numbers.

13

I wasn’t aware the war on drugs was about stopping overdose deaths. Perhaps it should be, but according to Wikipedia:

Doctors don’t get enough regulation when it comes to opioids, IMO. This means some doctors get away with prescribing too much, and others don’t prescribe when necessary out of a sense of fear. There is no magic solution; any restriction on prescriptions will leave out people who need them, and any relaxing will see addicts getting prescribed their drug.

I also agree that the pandemic has messed with the baseline.

14

From the article:

"The rise in deaths — the vast majority caused by synthetic opioids — was fueled by widespread use of fentanyl, a fast-acting drug that is 100 times as powerful as morphine. Increasingly fentanyl is added surreptitiously to other illegally manufactured drugs to enhance their potency.

Overdose deaths related to use of stimulants like methamphetamine, cocaine, and natural and semi-synthetic opioids, such as prescription pain medication, also increased during the 12-month period."

There is absolutely no mention of any other kind of overdose death, such as when a confused elderly person forgets he has already taken his daily prescription of a potent drug and takes it multiple times or a young child thinking a drug is a candy gobbles it up.

15

I know this is wrong, but with everything that’s happened with the drug trade and the fight against it, I just don’t care anymore. Legalize it or don’t, overdoses up or down, doesn’t matter to me. The only concern I have is if I become disabled with pain for whatever reason in the future, I hope I can find a doctor who will prescribe the proper relief without hesitation.

I don’t mean this as a threadshit. It’s just my opinion after years of being bombarded with unending newsflashes about this subject with no optimism in sight.

16

The death toll from drug overdoses is tragic, but remember that this epidemic of drug abuse has been massively destructive in other ways.

The epidemic has overwhelmed law enforcement and social service agencies in communities nationwide with rural communities and small towns hit the hardest. Child welfare agencies become overwhelmed with the children of addicts and overdose victims. Law enforcement in these areas is similarly overtaxed.

The economies of these communities are hit by not only increased costs, but a loss of revenue as money that should be going back into the community, by citizens spending in local businesses, goes to drug cartels. The businesses themselves suffer from a lack of paying customers, honest employees and excessive losses from shoplifting and organized theft. These factors often drive them out of business -sending the money - and tax revenues - out of the community. It’s a vicious cycle.

Then we get to the actual cost of treating addiction. The standard treatment seems to be medium to long term inpatient rehab, which is incredibly expensive and not very effective. Plus, the “drug rehab industry” is a magnet for fraud and abuse, which is to be expected whenever you are selling an expensive treatment that no one really expects to work.

It’s a tragic situation and even though the current problem seems to be primarily driven by fentanyl and other illegal substance, it started with wildly and criminally irresponsible corporations deliberately creating a market for their product by setting out to addict as many people as possible. So tragic.

17

I don’t think it ever was. I may be oversimplifying this, but it seems to me that if you end the war on drugs, allow retail sales and so on, dealers will lose the incentive to adulterate, say, heroin with fentanyl and the spate of deaths will decline.

Note that I am not advocating using drugs only ending this insane war. I have never used any narcotic myself (save for short medical interventions) and won’t, but I won’t stop others.

18

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.

An estimated 95,000 people (approximately 68,000 men and 27,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually,

I don’t think we need to make more drugs legal (except perhaps marijuana) considering the high death counts of existing legal drugs: we don’t need more legal drugs with high death counts.