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100 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. How do we stop that?

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Saturday, October 25, 2025 15:26
VIEWED: 7170
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KPO

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 6:23 PM

A long, but fascinating read:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/02/07/100-america
ns-die-of-drug-overdoses-each-day-how-do-we-stop-that/

Some excerpts:

Quote:
Overdosing is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, accounting for more deaths than traffic fatalities or gun homicides and suicides. Fatal overdoses from opiate medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone have quadrupled since 1999, accounting for an estimated 16,651 deaths in 2010.

Quote:
KH: News reports about batches of “killer heroin” are typically overblown. But unusually strong doses of a drug are in fact rarely the cause of overdose. Toxicology results after a fatal overdose usually indicate that the victim has consumed either their normal dosage level or a dose slightly lower than their normal level. It’s too late to fix the language, but “poisoning” might be a better term than overdose.
You might ask: Why would an experienced user die from taking their normal dose? Typically overdose occurs because they've had a loss of tolerance. This loss of tolerance often arises because they haven't used for a while. Maybe they had a voluntary period of abstinence. Maybe they were in jail, and their body can no longer handle the same dose.
The other leading cause of loss of tolerance is consumption of other substances. This is particularly true of alcohol, which seems to lower the body's ability to tolerate opiates (so do benzodiazepines). Most of what we call “opiate overdoses” are really polydrug overdoses: alcohol and heroin, alcohol and oxycontin, benzodiazepine, alcohol and Vicodin, combinations like that.

Quote:
It is pretty amazing. Many people are focusing on the return of heroin and saying, "It's all the fault of criminals." You've got to remember, 4 in 5 of people today who start using heroin began their opioid addiction on prescription opioids. The responsibility doesn't start today with the stereotypical criminal street dealer. We basically created this problem with legally manufactured drugs that were legally prescribed. This really flies in the face of the argument that if we just had a flow of legal drugs, the harms would be minimal.

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In the late 1990s, many medical societies became appropriately concerned about poor pain management in the United States. Many patients were not receiving needed pain relief, which was and remains a very serious problem. That worthy concern for improved pain management became fused with the pharmaceutical industry’s profit-seeking goals, which they pursued through aggressively pushing opioids in primary care settings and doing a lot of deceptive marketing.
Purdue Pharma was fined $600 million for deceiving regulators, doctors and patients about the addiction and overdose risks of OxyContin. They told prescribers not to worry, saying that the drug wouldn’t be abused and there was little risk in even very high doses. These claims turned out to be untrue.

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I was on a public radio call-in program yesterday and heard multiple stories of people with mild pain being written refillable prescriptions for large numbers of opioid painkillers.. There's a lot of that andit's irresponsible and dangerous. What happens is either the person takes all the medicine, which they shouldn't, and maybe they start then developing a problem. Alternatively, they take two pills and then there's a bunch of Vicodin or OxyContin sitting in the medicine cabinet for someone else to find: a local teenager, a friend of a friend, a guest at a party. Overprescribing and then loose storage fueled the epidemic. It's still true today. When you ask people who abuse prescription opioids, "Where do you get them?" Their usual source is friends and family, not street purchases. It's frightening, we've flooded the whole country with these things and they're everywhere.

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Add one other thing; when people lose their health insurance, they may need th

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BYTEMITE

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 8:22 PM

Had me until here:

Quote:
This really flies in the face of the argument that if we just had a flow of legal drugs, the harms would be minimal.

In addition to simply not agreeing because that's the argument that the DEA uses to justify their existence running drugs and guns and making bundles of money off that everywhere... I also have no idea exactly how the logic here flows from prescription drugs being the primary gateway to addiction and that most of these overdoses are actually a combination of drugs and alcohol into what I can only presume is a "BAN ALL THESE DRUGS" stance.

We did prohibition on alcohol before and it didn't effin' work. That's why the shit is legal, but we carefully control the sale of the substance.

The problem clearly is that people aren't educated enough about various kinds of drugs and the interactions between them, in the same sort of flawed thinking that abstinence only education will somehow prevent pregnancy. It's also clear that the black market is flooded with this shit, which it wouldn't be if it was legal, meaning people would be getting correct dosages from pharmacies instead of buying off the street or getting it second hand from friends and family.

Let people be HUMAN and make mistakes, but give them enough information and options that they can do it safely. FFS.

WISHIMAY

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 9:47 PM

How do we prevent overdoses?

Shoot them before they can, then they can go out like 'Mericans...

Sorry, my morbid humor took over.

Ain't a damn thing you can do. If the processor ain't processing, system failure is imminent one way or another. All goes backs to the brain. We're just not good at fixin' that....

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:36 PM

I think everyone's opinion about overdoses is what really needs to change.

People need to stop thinking about the child that was excited about life many years prior when the overdose took place.

Aside from some freak horror stories about some naive teen dying their first or second time out trying out a drug that had some bad shit cut into it, that innocent child left the room many, many years before.

Some people just want to die, or at the very least, they don't give a shit one way or another if they live another day.

There's no doubt that the more hard core drugs especially are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING the first time you try them and maybe a few more times after that. Unfortunately your body builds a tolerance to the effects pretty rapidly, and even though you're still suffering the negative effects anytime you use it's so easy to become a routine since you never feel a high anywhere near those first few times without a LONG break in between uses (I don't think there is any other word for that in the dictionary other than relapse). One day, a lot of these people find themselves in a position where being on the drug is their new normal and being sober is agony.

So they take more......

And that works a few times, but WHEN they want to get THAT high again, they need to take even more... and more and more and more.....

Short of ABSOLUTE 100% control over every action every single citizen takes in this country from here to eternity, you're NEVER going to stop that.

My advice is to just worry about people you care about, especially the "innocent" children you know. Even if you're not a parent, you could be a Frem to some confused kid who's parents are divorced and so self-absorbed that they don't even realize that their kid(s) are starting down a darker path than they ever imagined.

Stop relying on TV and Schools to "educate" kids out of using drugs. Any one of my grade school teachers would have told you that I never would do drugs. If you asked my parents if they thought I'd ever take up smoking 20 years ago, they both would have given a resounding no (probably reinforced by how many packs of cigarettes of theirs I'd RUIN if they left them out). Their response would have been a no brainer if you asked them if I would ever try pot or coke or mushrooms too.

At least they would have been right about the Herion and Meth though.... well.... at least so far they would have been.

PEOPLE NEED TO STOP WASTING THEIR TIME WORRYING ABOUT SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS SO INFINITELY BEYOND THEIR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE AND THEY NEED TO DO A GODDAMNED "GRASS ROOTS CAMPAIGN" WITH THE PROBLEMS THEY CAN HAVE AN EFFECT ON WHEN IT COMES TO PEOPLE THEY LOVE.

Honestly. I don't give a shit if 1,000 people OD a day, as long as my Niece ain't one of them. ;)

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 12:37 AM

Quote:

Short of ABSOLUTE 100% control over every action every single citizen takes in this country from here to eternity, you're NEVER going to stop that.

[....]

PEOPLE NEED TO STOP WASTING THEIR TIME WORRYING ABOUT SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS SO INFINITELY BEYOND THEIR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE AND THEY NEED TO DO A GODDAMNED "GRASS ROOTS CAMPAIGN" WITH THE PROBLEMS THEY CAN HAVE AN EFFECT ON

...!

Huh. Well done.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Huh. Well done.

Don't let it ever be said that I didn't have my moment(s?) :)

OONJERAH

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:31 AM

"100 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. How do we stop that?"

I repeat, "I'm for Recovery by proven methods."
Recovery does work for people who want it.
Anyone want to discuss what works?

====================== :>
LOL

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:41 AM

Seems like the best way to promote recovery is to find a way to make people want it. Which is itself a person by person venture, best determined by those who are closest to them.

There really just aren't going to be broad level policy changes that can fix this one.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 2:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
I repeat, "I'm for Recovery by proven methods."
Recovery does work for people who want it.
Anyone want to discuss what works?

I wouldn't be opposed to any such constructive conversation O. That's the truth.

Just don't try to save me, and we're square, Padre. I would have pegged you just a few notches far to the left to have ever thought whatever your suggesting would be Faith Based, but forgive me for saying that it sure sounds like a religious pitch.

Outside of that, I don't believe that any "methods" are "proven" beyond the intensely finite scope of that single individual given those exact circumstances.

I've seen the same 8 ball of coke effect everyone in the room differently.

If interaction/dependency on drugs were studied under a microscope like genetics, you would know that each and every single individual case was unique. I will give you that many are very similar and the right approach would work for many, but claiming a PROVEN way as if it would cure ANYBODY who follows it sounds like you're selling snake oil to polish my cross.

I appreciate the enthusiasm O, but the delivery gets a "B-". If you're not selling me a Bible or the Koran or Dianetics, I don't know what you came here for.

GETTING INTO any type of drug/alcohol culture is completely different for every single person. Why? How? When? Where? Who?...... these all might be questions that you ask yourself when you find out your son or your sister or your nephew or your best friend is admitting their addiction to you.

The only thing you should be doing at that point is thanking out loud that they care enough about themselves to come to you about it.

There is no ultimate-in-any-situation-true handbook to child rearing.

The days, weeks, months or even Years or even DECADES a drug abuser can maintain their coping mechanisms and equalibrium take their toll. After that, it's no longer the last 3 minutes of Benny Hill... It's just a numb numbingly numbness that kind of gets into every pore like tile grout.

In my actual real life, I just tell them to knock the shit off and get back to work and for the most part that works.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 12:36 PM

You can't save people from themselves, and ya shouldn't oughta try.

-F