SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Synthetics now killing more people than prescription opioids, report says
Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have overtaken prescription opioids as the No. 1 killer in the opioid epidemic, according to a new report.
The report, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA [DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.2844] [DX], calculated the number and percentage of synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths in the United States between 2010 and 2016 using death certificates from the National Vital Statistics System. The researchers found that about 46% of the 42,249 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016 involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, while 40% involved prescription drugs.
That's more than a three-fold increase in the presence of synthetic opioids from 2010, when synthetic drugs were involved in approximately 14% of opioid-overdose deaths.
Related: Heroin, Fentanyl? Meh: Carfentanil is the Latest Killer Opioid
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline Due to Opioid Crisis
Purdue Pharma to Cut Sales Force, Stop Marketing Opioids to Doctors
The More Opioids Doctors Prescribe, the More Money They Make
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @04:17PM
As someone who left my home region because of the economy - it's because "quantitative measures" are usually averages across the entire nation, and by population. Most of the population lives in very small dots on the map, so unless you live in one of those dots it's not going to reflect your own reality.
Just as my personal example... saying "Look! The economy is great because unemployment is 4%!" means nothing to the place I grew up because unemployment is actually between 8-10% unless you drive 100 miles. Everyone you see and interact with on a regular basis doesn't live in a place where unemployment is 4%. We don't have violent crime as a problem, so why would we care if it's going down from 2 instances per year to 1? When it's that low it's just noise, it means nothing.
I don't really have a feel on the other two things you mentioned, because everyone is poor out there and we know that debt is to be avoided if possible. If you take a student loan, you by default leave the region because you can't find a job to pay for it where you grew up. Brain drain is a massive problem - but not for the cities, because that's where they are being drained to.
If I have to drive 300 miles to find a place where the measures are actually close to the measurement, it's not very good to use for quality-of-life. And if people keep using them to "prove" that things are good, like federal politicians do, I'm going to treat them as a untrustworthy because they clearly live in different reality than me. I'm not going to believe you necessarily even if you are telling the truth.