So much for the so-called ‘war on drugs’… The United States has been gripped by a heroin and opiate epidemic with user numbers recently hitting a 20 year high.
In 2014, the number of U.S. heroin users passed the million mark with deaths from overdoses rising steeply. And as Statista’s Niall McCarthy writes, drugs are now killing substantially more Americans every year than car crashes.
In 2004, 30,711 deaths were drug related compared to 42,836 in
motor vehicle accidents. A decade later, drug-induced deaths reached
49,714 while road crash deaths fell to 32,675.
You will find more statistics at Statista
As well as the cheap suppy of heroin, legistlation aimed at eliminating prescription opioid abuse has actually added to the problem. It involved changing the texture of the pills to make them more difficult to crush and inject into the bloodstream. That move made people shift over to heroin in droves. New and deadlier drugs such as Fentanyl are also adding to the overdose epidemic. 50 times more potent than heroin, Fentanyl has created an overdose spike in several north-eastern states and has been named as the drug that killed pop singer Prince earlier this year.
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