Bad news from the CDC: According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many more people are dying from heroin overdoses than in past years. What is particularly disturbing is the rapid jump from 2012, when 5,927 people died from a heroin overdose, to 2013, when the numbers rose … Continue reading Overdose deaths linked to heroin jumped 39 percent in 2013
Tag: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
The NY Times on The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder: After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating. Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs … Continue reading The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
Drug Overdose Deaths Are Increasing Pretty Much Everywhere
These images speak for themselves. Here are a couple of important sentences: Between 1999 and 2009, drug poisoning deaths grew by 394 percent in rural areas and 279 percent for large metropolitan areas, according to the CDC’s county-level look at the data. According to the CDC, roughly 60 percent of all OD deaths in 2010 … Continue reading Drug Overdose Deaths Are Increasing Pretty Much Everywhere
Worth Every Penny?
Preventing HIV is a very good thing. The Atlantic has a post about the role of needle exchanges in preventing HIV. It makes a pretty compelling case that needle exchanges reduce HIV infection rates among injection drug users. I don't doubt this. And, provided it serves as an engagement point for recovery, I have no … Continue reading Worth Every Penny?
What should we think about e-cigarettes?
Motherlode notes a trend in e-cigarettes and is concerned: I was standing outside our neighborhood ice cream shop one recent evening when I noticed a plume of smoke rise above a gaggle of teenagers waiting in line ahead of me. “Wow,” I thought, “that takes some serious chutzpah.” These kids were smoking in public without … Continue reading What should we think about e-cigarettes?
Solving the prescription opioid problem
I've posted several times recently on the problem of opioid over-prescription and overdose. Some might assume that I want some regulatory or statutory intervention to address the issue. Truth is, I've got more questions than answers and I would not support a response that forces us to choose between treating pain and preventing addiction and … Continue reading Solving the prescription opioid problem
Prescription drug overdose statistics visually
Popular Science has a chart with US overdose deaths by drug: ...the rate of reported overdoses the U.S. more than doubled between 1999 and 2010. About half of those additional deaths are in the pharmaceuticals category, which the CDC has written about before. Nearly three-quarters of the pharmaceuticals deaths are opioid analgesics—prescription painkillers like OxyContin and … Continue reading Prescription drug overdose statistics visually
Opiate use soars
The AP has a story on the explosion of prescription opiate sales: Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available. That's enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in … Continue reading Opiate use soars
Recovery Review 