Americans Now More Likely to Die From Opioids Than Car Crashes

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

For the first time since the National Safety Council started tracking preventable injury and fatality statistics in 1913, Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than in a car accident.

The NSC calculates the “Odds of Dying” based on statistical averages, dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in the year of their current analysis — in this case 2017. Heart disease, cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease held the three top spots (with one in six, one in seven, and one in 27 odds respectively) followed by suicide with one in 88. Opioid overdose was the fifth most likely, and the most likely in the category the NSC calls “preventable injury deaths,” with one in 96 odds. Motor vehicle crash deaths followed in sixth at odds of one in 103. Also notable, gun assault was the eighth most likely cause of death, with one in 285 odds.

“For many Americans, opioid misuse still feels like an abstract issue,” Maureen Vogel, spokeswoman for the National Safety Council told Rolling Stone in an email. “They don’t really believe it will touch them or their family. These data show that’s likely not the case.”

In 2018, unintentional injury, which includes overdoses and car accidents, was found to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people between the ages of one and 44, nearly twice as high as cancer and heart disease combined — based on data from 2016.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/opioid-od-kill-more-than-car-accidents-779489/

[cwydro]

1. Well, not this American. nt

[Hekate]

2. Hillary told us this too. nt

[Submariner]

3. Tonight Vice News noted how the organ transplant

business is booming with young healthy, but brain dead, bodies saving the lives of many others.

[notdarkyet]

4. My brother just died a week before Christmas from an opioid ovedose. He was a disabled vet who got

Got His drugs from the va for years. It was an expected outcome.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. So sorry to hear that.

Condolences on your loss.

[Palisade]

5. Don't worry, the wall will fix this!

Oh wait...

[Igel]

6. What we obviously need is legislation regulating their distribution and use.

Oddly, I haven't seen protests or large-scale demonstrations, student walkouts, or anything of the sort over opioid use.

[Mariana]

10. Alcohol still kills more people than opioids.

Many of the opioid deaths probably involve alcohol as well, since people do mix alcohol and opioids and that is a particularly deadly combination. I wish we would hear a lot more about the dangers of mixing opioids with other depressant drugs such as alcohol, because it would probably save lives.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I wish they would distinguish between heroin/fentanyl use

and other opioids. It is really hard to tell how much is an abused prescription drug system and/or an illegal drug issues. The responses to either are not necessarily the same.

[Akacia]

9. Exactly. NT.

[Mariana]

11. They're not telling us how many deaths are due to mixing drugs, either.

Even the more mild narcotic painkillers at normal doses are very dangerous when mixed with alcohol, for example.