[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Each was an epidemic, destined to destroy all of society. And yet, here we still are."

Couple of points, the first is all of the ones you mentioned were usually a choice. A lot of the opiod abuse starts off by getting addicted to legal prescription drugs. This is what happened to Rush Limbaugh.

Second, I don't remember all of the overdoses and deaths. Back then, they didn't have all emergency workers with narcan in their vehicles to prevent it. I think it's worse now.

[cyclotic]

I just drove by the Hartford County MD Sheriff office where they post an overdose count. YTD overdoses 179, fatalities 37. Last years total was 59. Yea, it’s a problem

[wbill]

Anecdotal, but I've got a buddy that was a paramedic in Wash DC going on 30 years ago. They carried Narcan (or whatever it was called back then) at that time, too.

He said that some of the more dangerous street life was OD's that he'd given Narcan to. Said that they'd come up swinging, because he'd just killed the high they'd spent their last dollar to get.

I do understand what you're talking about with prescription drugs, however. They're ridiculously over-prescribed, especially "Happy Pills". Plenty of marginally functional Xanax addicts out there.

[cornfedcowboy]

I was surprised to hear a study that only 25% of opiate addicts started with a prescription for pain. The stuff must be cheap and available nowadays.