Posted on 11/06/2015 11:29:39 AM PST by familyop
(CNSNews.com) - "Drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States, ahead of motor vehicle deaths and firearms (deaths)," the Drug Enforcement Agency announced on Wednesday.
In 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 46,471 people in the United States died from drug overdoses, and more than half of those deaths were caused by prescription painkillers and heroin.
That compares with the 35,369 who died in motor vehicle crashes and 33,636 who died from firearms, as tallied by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Sadly this report confirms what we’ve known for some time: drug abuse is ending too many lives while destroying families and communities,†Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said as he released the 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment.
“We must stop drug abuse before it begins by teaching young people at an even earlier age about its many dangers and horrors."
Rosenberg spoke one day after Ohio voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have legalized both recreational and medical marijuana use. But 23 other states and Washington, D.C., allow the use of marijuana for medicinal and/or recreational purposes.
The DEA ranks controlled prescription drugs and heroin as the most significant drug threats to the United States.
It also views marijuana concentrates, with potency levels far exceeding those of leaf marijuana, as an "issue of growing concern."
Meanwhile, the issue of drug abuse is making its way into the presidential campaign, as some of the candidates talk about their personal experience with addictions and even deaths.
"My husband, Frank, and I buried a child to drug addiction," Carly Fiorina said at one of the Republican debates.
Jeb Bush's daughter was arrested on drug-related charges in 2002, and she has spent time in rehab. He has discussed this at some of his campaign stops.
And a video of Chris Christie talking about his good friend who became addicted to painkillers -- and died -- has now gone viral.
The National Drug Threat Assessment also discusses the traffickers, concluding that "Mexican gangs remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States."
The DEA notes that, according to reports from law enforcement, some of these Mexican gangs are "relocating from major metropolitan areas to establish bases of operation in suburban or rural areas."
Drug deaths are voluntary. You decide to take the drugs. Few auto crash deaths or gun deaths are suicide.
Probably bad data, “everyone knows” guns kill more people than drugs. /s
And ... The point is??????
Thanks to the so-called War on Drugs, it will be even more difficult to get pain relief. Some people misuse prescriptions drugs, so now both parties will make it harder for non-connected people to get relief.
drugs, not hugs?
There were 19,392 firearm-related suicides in the U.S. in 2010. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that approximately 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide.
Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia, the ...
It's a dangerous world out there!
I wonder how many of these are heroin versus prescription drugs.
We need drug control.
The US government has declared an Opium war against Americans.
Afghanistan opium production has increased significantly since US placed troops there.
The Southern border is wide open.
The DEA is corrupt. DEA protects Mexican drug cartels.
The US has the highest per capital prison rate, and there are heroin dealers and related gang members in jail. This is what the Feds want. The DEA has more business, job security.
Prisons are on the rise and so are associated industries. Politicians like to invest in these industries and they like the donations.
Crack down on legal opioid prescriptions for chronic pain patients and force patients to go on the street for opioids and heroin. Even better for the Feds, more business more prisons, more police.
This is taking a page out of the Opium War script that Britain waged against China in the 1840s.
What’s the solution? Stop Afghan protection racket. Eliminate the DEA and let the states make and enforce drug laws. Secure the border. Create guidelines for opioid prescribing at State Medical Boards.
Obama’s choom-gang America.
Whole damned country seems to be on dope. Both legal and illegal. Indeed, it would explain a lot of the detachment from reality.
But the guns have the magical ability to convince people to off themselves, by their mere presence. The only solution is to collect them all so that only the Inner Party has them.
After all, why should anyone else have that much power?
“That compares with the 35,369 who died in motor vehicle crashes and 33,636 who died from firearms”
While I agree with the premise of the article that illegal drugs are destructive to society, the attempt to equate them is illogical.
People who take drugs voluntarily put drugs in their body and literally die from the drugs.
People who die in motor vehicle crashes include those under the influence of alcohol and drugs, those who drive recklessly,criminals who use cars in crimes and innocent victims killed by other drivers. It is not the car that kills them, it is the actions of either themselves or others.
Many of the people killed with guns are criminals, often in the drug trade, as well as innocent victims of crime.
The guns do not kill them. The person using the gun does.
May of the gun deaths and auto deaths are due to alcohol and drugs.
Suicides by gun accounted for about six of every 10 firearm deaths in 2010 and just over half of all suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the CDC began publishing data in 1981, gun suicides have outnumbered gun homicides. But as gun homicides have declined sharply in recent years, suicides have become a greater share of all firearm deaths: the 61% share in 2010 was the highest on record. That year there were 19,392 suicides by firearm compared to 11,078 homicides by gun (35% of all firearm deaths). The rest were accidents, police shootings and unknown causes.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/24/suicides-account-for-most-gun-deaths/
How about a war on drugs?
We need to ban overdoses on drugs.
Thanks for posting that. Even in “assisted suicide” Oregon, many people choose firearms.”
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