Drug Overdose Deaths Reach Record High in US

The number of Americans who have died from a drug overdose attributable to opioids soared by 14 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Drug overdose deaths increased sharply across the United States to the highest level since at least 1970, according to a new government report.

The report, released Friday, says the Commonwealth had 2,426 overdose deaths in 2013 and 2,732 in 2014, marking a 12.9 percent increase over that period.

Drug overdoses – particularly those from prescription opioid painkillers – has become a priority issue for the Atlanta-based CDC. In particular, he singled out the “opioid epidemic” as causing widespread problems among families, cities and local communities, though deaths from the use of cocaine and other illegal drugs were included in the report.

Over the past year, obituaries spotlighting victims of drug addiction have put faces to these statistics.

The five states with the highest rates of overdose are West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Ohio. The agency is trying to produce new guidelines that would encourage doctors to prescribe potentially addictive painkillers only as a last resort.

Imperial Valley News In other news, The most commonly prescribed opioid pain relievers, those classified as natural or semi-synthetic opioids such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, continue to be involved in more overdose deaths than any other opioid type.

Deaths from drug overdoses have hit an alarming record high in the USA, according to research.

Drug overdoses are killing more people in the United States now than ever before.

State and local public health agencies, medical examiners and coroners, and law enforcement agencies must work together to improve detection of and response to illicit opioid overdose outbreaks to address this emerging threat to public health and safety.

“These findings indicate that the opioid overdose epidemic is worsening”, said the lead researcher Rose Budd in the report.

The Butler County coroner also told the Associated Press that overdoses weren’t uncommon. Deaths from heroin increased in 2014, continuing a sharp rise that has seen heroin overdoses triple since 2010. Almost half a million lives have been lost to opioid drug overdoses since then.