Painkillers: The New Deadly Menace

Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a report revealing that drug poisoning is now the leading cause of accidental deaths.  For the first time since 1980, car accidents are not at the top of the list.  A new menace has abounded and it is known as over dosing on analgesic pain killers like OxyContin, Vicodin, Fentanyl, and Methadone. Painkillers were found to cause more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined.  From 1999 to 2008, the rate of death by poisoning increased by 90%, while motor accidents decreased to 15%.

A reason for this dramatic increase in death is that there has been an increase of medication being consumed for nonmedical reasons.  Our country experienced a 75% increase from 2002-2010.  On average, between the years 2009 and 2010 it was discovered that 956,000 Americans took prescription medication for 200 days or more without medically needing to.   About 4.6 million people claimed to have taken it 30 days or more without actually needing it.

Another reason some people overdose is by attempting to quit their painkiller but changing their minds for one reason or another.  Some do not realize that quitting for a few days lowers the levels of tolerance.  If they do not take this into consideration and consume their usual amount it could possibly prove fatal.

When these statistics are combined with the projection that our numbers of chronic pain sufferers will only increase, we have a scary scenario.  In the years to come, it appears that many more people will be consuming medication for their pain.  This fact combined with the flux in recreational users reveals that we have an epidemic on our hands.   All in all we have a lot of individuals consuming medication that, as we are realizing, have the potential to lead to negative side effects, addiction, and death.  Our lives are being affected more than we may realize.

Author Information: RTPR.com

For more visit Christina Anthony’s Blog at http://rtpr.com/manage/blog/1400

Editor’s Note — PainKillerAwareness.org is committed to sharing information we have gathered through extensive analysis of research studies, credible media sources and statistics. Our goal is to provide readers with the information that we gather along with the corresponding source. This will allow our readers to make intelligent and informed decisions about the painkillers they choose to consume. This particular blog post/article is an ongoing article that will have new information added to it as it is discovered or released. If our readers have important information that is not in this article, we would appreciate it if you would share the information and source with us through our contact page.

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