Drug and alcohol addiction is a growing problem, a crippling health epidemic that has expanded across all aspects and areas of American health and life.
Across America, families are struggling and suffering from the effects of our opioid epidemic. Losses show up in the deaths of our loved ones and an astronomical financial burden. But now, we are seeing signs that our national counterefforts are starting to produce results.
It seems like a small thing, just letters from a county coroner to 388 California medical doctors, telling them that one of their patients died from a prescription drug overdose. But this simple step subsequently reduced the number of opioid prescriptions handed out by these doctors. Overcoming our opioid epidemic is going to take many of these small steps.
How did America get to the point of losing 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses in one year? We’ve traveled a long road to get to this point and in truth, most people haven’t even noticed the journey.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that rural areas are no longer safe havens from drug overdose death because the rate of OD deaths in rural areas has just surpassed the rate in cities.
Many people are waiting for the day when drug overdose deaths max out and begin to decline. Have we reached that point yet? Not even close.
Every year, the medical examiners of Florida issue a report on the drugs found in the bodies of people who died in this state. They also delineate which people died with one or more drugs being the causative factor.