Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults

[hack89]

Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago — a turn of fortune that stands in sharp contrast to falling death rates for young blacks, a New York Times analysis of death certificates has found.

The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it.

The drug overdose numbers were stark. In 2014, the overdose death rate for whites ages 25 to 34 was five times its level in 1999, and the rate for 35- to 44-year-old whites tripled during that period. The numbers cover both illegal and prescription drugs.

Rising rates of overdose deaths and suicide appear to have erased the benefits from advances in medical treatment for most age groups of whites. Death rates for drug overdoses and suicides “are running counter to those of chronic diseases,” like heart disease, said Ian Rockett, an epidemiologist at West Virginia University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html?smid=re-share&_r=1

Cheap heroin is devastating New England - Rhode Island alone averages over 200 drug overdose deaths a year. In comparison, we average about 30 murders a year.

[hobbit709]

1. And why is heroin more plentiful and cheaper than ever before?

Ask the CIA.

[hack89]

3. Recognition by the Mexican cartels that illegal prescription pills were getting too expensive

so they ramped up production and offered heroin as a cheap alternative to oxy and other opiates that have seen a massive spike in price as the feds have cracked down on prescription pill abuse.

The significance of the present heroin epidemic is not the price - it has always been cheap. It is a completely different demographic using and dying from heroin. A generation of addicts who started with illegal prescription pills but now can't afford them.

[hobbit709]

4. Heroin started flooding the market not long after we invaded Afghanistan.

[hack89]

6. Mexico is a major poppy growing and heroin producing country

Mexican cartels are only too happy to meet the increased demand for heroin. "These criminals are businessmen," Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spokesman Rusty Payne told InSight Crime. "They're interested in the bottom line and when they see the skyrocketing demand for heroin in the US, they're going to adjust accordingly."

Payne said the Mexican cartels -- which once produced low-grade black tar heroin and trafficked the higher quality Colombian varieties -- are now producing brown heroin and higher-grade white heroin as well.

In fact, Mexico appears to be surpassing Colombia as the main producer of heroin for the US market. Brownfield recently stated that the majority of the heroin sold in the United States comes from Mexico, where US authorities have seen an increase in poppy cultivation and heroin production.

Payne told InSight Crime that although the numbers fluctuate slightly, the DEA has arrived at a similar conclusion. "For the most part we're seeing a huge rise in Mexico-produced heroin in the US to the point where we think it's eclipsed Colombia," he said.

http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/mexico-poppy-production-feeds-growing-us-heroin-demand

More importantly, the cartels control many of the drug distribution networks in the US.

[Calista241]

9. We could always put the Taliban back in charge.

They can begin the oppression all over again and save us all from the ills of cheap heroin.

[Angel Martin]

2. why is the solution

to gun violence more restrictions and bans...

but the solution to drug deaths is legalization ?

[JonathanRackham]

5. And both social situations are interdependent.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. If gun users were only shooting themselves, i suspect it would be a different

Conversation.

Also, no one is ever going to ban or take away your guns. You can walk into a wal-mart and buy a gun in most states. Meanwhile we have people sitting in prison for 10 years because they got caught smoking a joint.

So, please.

Also, "drugs" are not a monolith. Nobody is dying from marijuana overdoses.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

7. bin laden and the taliban weren't the only reason we went to Afghanistan, wink, wink. nt

[NightWatcher]

8. Use cannabis to ween people slowly off of opiates

I've seen it work.

Cannabis is medicine and should be legal and openly available!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Ironically, the "heroin crisis" is cynically being used to change the subject from mj legalization.

Isnt that interesting? Seems we can't even get half a conversation going in one of these debates about the fact that FOUR STATES have legalized recreational marijuana and others, including California, are likely to this November, because invariably the conversation magically turns into "Zomg how can we give the DEA more money to fight the drug problem because heroin?"

[NightWatcher]

13. Except that no one has ever OD'd from cannabis

Ive tried several times back in the day.

No one dies from cannabis, has ever, or will ever.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Yes, i know.

My point is, rather than address the momentum behind mj legalization, the PTB have decided to change the subject.

[NightWatcher]

15. I'm in agreement with you on that

[AngryAmish]

16. I have seen folks do the same with booze.👖

[Warren DeMontague]

10. And the increase is driven in large part by efforts to "crack down" on prescription pill users.

Addicts will find ways to feed their addiction, one way or another. Caught in the fallout are legitimate pain patients, made to suffer.

And isnt it interesting that it is East Coast states, notoriusly way more hardassed than the West on questions of marijuana both medical and recreational, that are experincing this?

[REP]

17. "Interesting"

As in "zOMG white kids are ODing!" Yes, I find this sudden heroin/prescription painkiller crisis to be a bit made for the moment.

[flamingdem]

19. There was a piece on NPR about this saying grandparents are taking care of the kids of

these addicts. It seems quite serious.

[REP]

22. Oooh, a nice Venn diagram of "interests"

Grandparents and white teens.

Yeah, I see the pattern.

[flamingdem]

23. It's news like it or not

Plus, newsflash a lot of New Englanders are white and poor.

[flamingdem]

24. I guess this is what you're pointing to - and it's valid of course

“This new turn to a more compassionate view of those addicted to heroin is welcome,” said Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who specializes in racial issues at Columbia and U.C.L.A. law schools. “But,” she added, “one cannot help notice that had this compassion existed for African-Americans caught up in addiction and the behaviors it produces, the devastating impact of mass incarceration upon entire communities would never have happened.”

from the NYT

[flamingdem]

18. But why New England?

Canadian border trafficking?

[hack89]

20. Primarily from New York

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's 2014 Nation Drug Threat Assessment Summary, most heroin supplies throughout the region are brought in from New York along the vast interstate highway system.

Western Massachusetts serves as one of the staging area for distribution in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, but "distributors" normally don't go past this state's borders, the report stated. Higher penalties in the northern states keep drug distributors here, forcing their buyers to come south.

Most traffickers transport heroin to Massachusetts along major highways in privately owned, borrowed, or leased vehicles and livery vans - which often are outfitted with hidden hydraulic compartments - and via public transportation (buses, trains, and commercial air carriers) and express delivery services. Buses run every hour or two between Springfield and New York City, and a livery service runs between the cities about once an hour.

"Interstate highways connect Massachusetts with five bordering states: New Hampshire (I-95 and I-93), Vermont (I-91), New York (I-90), Connecticut (I-91, I-84, and I-395), and Rhode Island (I-95, I-295, and I-195). Interstate 95 also provides a direct connection to all major cities on the East Coast - most importantly New York City - and the Canadian border.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/06/opioid_crisis_highway_to_hell.html

[TheFrenchRazor]

21. this is an economic crisis more than anything else; people are looking for an escape. nt