New Device Could Ease Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms

Statistics on Opiate Addiction

To better understand the opiate addiction epidemic the CDC has compiled some statistics and research results on the subject.  These came from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Some of the results are:

• The most significant concern with young adults today rests on prescription and over-the-counter medication abuse.  Specifically, the abuse of OxyContin, a highly addictive form of hydrocodone, is skyrocketing from the previous five years.  Approximately 8.2 percent of high school seniors have admitted to abusing stimulants in the year before the survey in 2009.  As recently as 2015, this number soared to almost eighteen percent.  Apparently, this is an actual epidemic of opiate pill abuse among youths and is fast-tracking to be the number one cause of preventable death among teenagers too.
• A 2010 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse study shows that the average age when Americans use heroin for the first time is about 21 years of age.  This number includes 140,000 who reported using it for the first time in the year before the survey was taken.  Now, there are more than two million Americans who are addicted to this drug.  This is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, and if addicts run out of it, they can just switch over to prescription opiate pain pills.
• Approximately 94% of respondents in a relatively 2014 survey of people in treatment centers and programs for opioid addiction said that they chose to use and abuse heroin because prescription opioids were, “far more expensive and harder to obtain.”  Tens of thousands of Americans switch to heroin every year after they run out of money for expensive prescription pills.
• As many as 48,000 women died of prescription pain reliever overdoses between 1999 and 2010.  Furthermore, prescription overdose deaths among women increased more than 400% from 1999 to 2010, compared to an increase of only 237% among men.  Inherently, whereas all other drugs tend to target men more than women, prescription drugs target women far more than they do men.
• Women are far more likely to have chronic pain, be prescribed prescription pain relievers, be given higher doses, and use them for more extended time periods than men. Women may become dependent on prescription pain relievers more quickly than men.  There are still technically more male prescription drug abuser, but if the trend of abuse continues the way it has been, the statistics will reverse.
• Heroin overdose deaths among women and men alike have tripled in the last few years alone. Between 2010 and 2013, female heroin overdoses increased from 0.4 to 1.2 per 100,000.  Men experienced a similar increase, but less so.  Sure enough, prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing drug problem in the nation, even faster than marijuana abuse is increasing.