It appears that there are certain issues in this isolated culture that might account for these dire numbers. I only post this because we lost a precious nephew a couple of years ago to this epidemic. He was not a member of any religion but ran with pals in an age group 21-30. They are rebelling against certain things in the culture it seems and drugs are not noticed so much until they die.
Utah residents are now more likely to die from a drug overdose than in a traffic accident.
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Good grief...
Utah problem ping
Drug addicts don’t have jobs and have financial problems?
Huh!
Who knew!
Wow. How very sad.
Is this sentence saying that lack of health care causes unemployment, financial problems and substance abuse?
Restornu,
Is this what you’re trying to “restore” us to?
Another one of those works, that we are supposed to know you by?
My regrets...
BUT.
This is NOT AN EPIDEMIC.
You lost a nephew.
That's all.
My apologies to you and for your loss, but it's not an EPIDEMIC.
Don't be a fool.
I see this publication has a 5th grader writing for it. This sentence, for example, is just so horribly written:
Rolfs said many cases are characterized either as a patient safety problem, in which a patient overdosed by taking the medicine wrong or was prescribed incorrectly, or they used the prescriptions recreationally and may have had an addiction.
Really?
Q: How isolated are members of the 21-30 age group?
A: Not at all.
This is meaningless data without accompanying data on deaths from unintentional NON-prescription drug overdoses *including alcohol*. I suspect the latter are much lower in Utah, due the Mormon culture and its influence on availability of recreational drugs *especially alcohol* (and really, this should include “overdoses” of alcohol that cause people to get themselves into fatal vehicle accidents, fall off balconies to their deaths, etc). Let’s see a state-by-state comparison of deaths from unintentional overdoses of ALL drugs *including alcohol*, before announcing any negative conclusions about Utah or Mormon culture. It’s not any better for a young adult to die of alcohol poisoning than to die of an oxycodone overdose — dead is dead.
but the other question is WHY oxycodone being prescribed to people with bad backs or necks etc...which I have both...serious degenerative disc disease and herniated discs in my neck...they do no cure anything....they mask...anti-inflammatories and simple walking does more good....
Lordy, what is wrong with this wimpy generation.....and what is wrong with these docs?
In NYC in the early 60’s there was a nasty little pill being prescribed called Doriden which had the effect, much like today’s Xanax, of increasing the effects of opioids at least tenfold. I lost 5 friends to this deadly combination within the space of 2 years, but in those days no one considered it an “epidemic”
I would be more inclined to call it an “isolated culture” if they had included Salt Lake and Utah counties (aka Happy Valley). I think Weber and Davis counties are much more mainstream. Box Elder is so isolated, I don’t think it’s data shoud be calculated in with the urban counties. Whole different set of factors and influences I would think.