U.S. - Painkiller Overdose Deaths Strike New York City's Middle Class

[S.J.B.]

Painkiller Overdose Deaths Strike New York City's Middle Class
Nancy Shute
NPR
October 18th, 2013

Drug overdoses are usually thought to afflict mainly the poor and troubled. But it looks like OxyContin and other opioid painkillers are changing the picture.

People in stable, middle-class neighborhoods are also dying from opioid overdoses, a study in New York City finds.

Opioids have become among the most popular drugs of abuse in the past decade, with deaths from overdoses of oxycodone, hydrocodone and codeine eclipsing those from heroin and cocaine combined.

Fatal overdoses from prescription painkillers more than tripled from 1991 to 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To find out what was happening in New York City, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health mapped the 447 unintentional deaths from opioid painkiller overdoses in its five boroughs from 2000 to 2006. They then compared those deaths to heroin overdoses and accidental deaths from other causes, such as falls and drowning.

Read the full story here.

Read the article this story is based on here.

I've contacted the corresponding author of the paper to see if I can find out the number of opioid deaths that involved alcohol, since this information is never provided in these kinds of stories.

 

[weekend addiction]

Wow reminds me of Eminem's "White America." Yes America good white kids do drugs to. Actually at a larger percentage rate than African Americans. These kids have lots of spending money and very busy parents. Mom can smell pot but not percocet. For these kids it's very easy to get a habit and they really have little to fear in the way of prosecution. Their parents will always bail them out of jail, buy them another Jeep, and pay a good lawyer to make sure their record looks good by 18. Not a surprise that kids with lots of money and parental support use drugs.

EDIT: Also I really do feel bad for the families. I think the key is for parents to encourage kids to practice good harm reduction techniques should they happen to use drugs. Kind of like how we recommend abstinence but also encourage the use of protection for young teens. I think Narcan should be more widely available as well. There is no reason anyone HAS to overdose.