Guardian - Drug overdoses killed more than 72,000 people in the United States last year – a new record driven by the deadly opioid epidemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control.
The CDC estimates that 72,287 people died from overdoses in 2017, an increase of about 10% from the year before.
A majority of the deaths – nearly 49,000 – was caused by opioids, according to the new data. And the biggest driver was the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl, which killed more than 29,000 people, followed by heroin and other drugs.
The rising overdose numbers make the drug epidemic more deadly than gun violence, car crashes or Aids, which have never killed as many people in a single year. It represents nearly 200 people dying from overdoses every day in 2017.
1 comment:
More unnecessary deaths caused by prohibition than by any illegal drugs. Many more caused by legal ones, no doubt. When will we ever move out of Prohibition once and for all?!
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