Heroin, Painkiller Abuse Now Top Killers in US

“We can not continue to accept these lives lost without serious future action”. These groups are responsible for the extreme violence seen in Mexico, as they battle for turf and attack public officials and innocent civilians.

Finally, Rosenberg notes, “Domestically, affiliated and violent gangs are increasingly a threat to the safety and security of our communities”.

Pittsburgh was chosen as the first city for the program because it has a significant heroin and prescription drug problem, said DEA Special Agent Patrick Trainor.

A few parts of the country are more adversly affected than others by the heroin epidemic, with the Northeast and several areas in the Midwest being most at risk. The NDTA also found that heroin availability has increased nationwide, as has the numbers of abusers, overdoses, and overdose deaths; prescription drug death have outnumbered those of cocaine and heroin combined since 2002; and fentanyl has caused more than 700 deaths between late 2013 and early 2015. Abuse of controlled prescription drugs is higher than that of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, MDMA, and PCP combined.

In addition, the DEA notes that synthetic designer drugs remain a leading threat among youth in the United States.

The NDTA provides an up-to-date look at the many challenges that local communities face related to drug abuse and trafficking.

According to the report, 120 people in the United States die each day as the result of an overdose and most of of these deaths are attributable to prescription opioids. The DEA recently surveyed more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies about what they saw as the biggest drug threats.

Amid experiments by many states which are loosening marijuana laws, Rosenberg said that people should not mix the matter of legalizing recreational marijuana with that of medicinal marijuana, Time reported.