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The number of opioid deaths in the USA is crazy! The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year. The EU has 1.5 times as many inhabitan

The number of opioid deaths in the USA is crazy! The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year. The EU has 1.5 times as many inhabitants as the US and has only 5000 drug related deaths per year!

ysleepy 4y ago
Harm reduction policies work.
- r00fus 4y ago
  But going beyond opioid deaths, Europe in general has a) decent medical coverage b) meaningful employment protections and c) better overall social safety net Apparently the poor are most at-risk from this crisis according to a large study [1] - so maybe the fix isn't just harm reduction, but alleviating the existential crisis we put people of lower income in the US - making them more susceptible to drug addiction & death [1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/large-study-links-lower-income-deaths-opioid-overdoses https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/large-study-links-lower-...
  - bravura 4y ago
    Also, Europe doesn't have a fentanyl crisis because we have cheap, pure heroin. The Afghani-Europe heroin pipeline is so old, tightly organized, and efficient that there is little need for an alternative. By comparison, shipping heroin across the Pacific is costly risky business, because it's easier to detect and seize. Hence the need for fentanyl which is orders of magnitude stronger and can be created in impromptu labs. This gets particularly dicey for every "party drug" users in the states, because a white powder that would be relatively harmless is subject to accidental cross-contamination. [edit based upon reading comments below: Yeah, if you live in the US and your friends take coke or ketamine, you should have Narcan.] Opiate users are addicts but they're not stupid. Nearly all greatly prefer reliable heroin to the risk of OD'ing. Hence why fentanyl hasn't become a thing in Europe. A reputation for killing your customers is bad for business. Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis?
    - baremetal 4y ago
      >Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? Because it has an amphetamine crisis?
      - selectodude 4y ago
        I thought all the kids do ketamine now.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Because cocaine is easily available?
    - Stagnant 4y ago
      I'm completely talking out of my ass here but I feel like how relatively uncommon meth is in EU compared to US has to do with ingredients being a lot harder to get in the EU area. Crystal is common in the US while in EU that is extremely rare, the meth on eu market is usually powder or rock. I'm assuming most of crystal meth in the US comes from mexico and they don't bother to ship that much of it overseas as stuff like cocaine has higher profits and a bigger market.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      > Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? Not enough free space. It takes a lot of room to make meth because anyone nearby can easily tell. It is going to change soon because Afghanistan is starting to make it.
    - extraduder_ire 4y ago
      > Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? I've always thought that it was because all the precursors for meth get used to make MDMA.Though it's probably more of a culture/economic thing. Europe definitely has some meth in it.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Ummm... Canada has universal health, lots of employment protection and a better social safety net. And opioid overdoses are similar to the US per capita. British Colombia had 2,306 deaths in 2022, and adjusted by population that's 132,000, so more than the US.
  - Gasp0de 4y ago
    As far as I understood it so far, it was actually companies that pushed (legal) opioid consumption in the US? They influenced doctors to prescribe lots of opioids, and then people get addicted and start buying it off the streets.
- version_five 4y ago
  Years ago (2017 ish) I remember reading an article where they interviewed some French public health or law enforcement people about whether they were concerned about the opioid problem coming there, and they basically said no, we have lots of treatment options here (which I understood to mean more legal access to opiates) so it's not a problem. The drug way is entirely the cause of all of this. I'm generally right wing but when I see the nonsense about the illegal immigration / border crossing being in any way related to the overdose problem, I find it idiotic. Its squarely a problem with how we've handled drug prohibition
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Several societies (incl France) offer codeine over the counter and have much lower opioid usage rates. I think there would be a lot of benefit to legalizing at least one molecule in each drug class for OTC recreational use, chosen based on harm reduction standards like toxicity, therapeutic index, and duration. I think so much of the drug war's ills could be headed off by making codeine and vyvanse OTC - destroying demand for dirtier more dangerous drugs would do enough good to offset the increased abuse rate for these particular chemicals.
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Vyvanse might be tough to OTC. It's still quite possible to get increasing need to take more and more and get psychosis.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    France has plenty of other drug problems, the most obvious being crack cocaine. You can walk around the parts of Paris to most obviously see this yourself, if you're curious. In fact a huge amount of violence in the banlieues relates to drugs.
WheatMillington 4y ago
Are Americans just permanently zonked on powerful prescription painkillers 24/7? Hard to understand how doctors are legitimately prescribing enough of this medicine to kill this many people.
- esaym 4y ago
  It is a money maker https://youtu.be/KAJ-lTtt4yk https://youtu.be/KAJ-lTtt4yk
  - scotty79 4y ago
    That's the answer to all weird things in US. It makes someone money.
- floxy 4y ago
  I don't think most people are ODing from prescription abuse. It is fentanyl. I'd be interested to know how many are being poisoned by fentanyl-laced drugs, vs. fentanyl addicts who OD. Maybe that stat would be too hard to come by?
  - ransom1538 4y ago
    Yes. Its a deadly combo. Tons of cheap opioids flowing in from Mexico made with Chinese chemicals. There is no way to stop it. Flood the EU with tons of cheap fentanyl for a fair comparison.
    - mysterydip 4y ago
      > There is no way to stop it. Isn't this what "the wall" and securing the borders was supposed to be for?
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        Yea but that doesn't work because that's not where its coming through
mattigames 4y ago
In the US many opiod makers of things like fentanyl spray and Oxycontin bribed doctors to prescribe it so a lot of those deaths are a direct cause of that, sources: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-former-chairman-board-insys-therapeutics-sentenced-66-months-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-former-chairm... https://www.voanews.com/a/us-states-purdue-pharma-reach-new-settlement-in-oxycontin-lawsuit-/6468808.html https://www.voanews.com/a/us-states-purdue-pharma-reach-new-...
blindriver 4y ago
China is purposefully funneling fentanyl into the US to create this opioid catastrophe. Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death of young people these days. It's pretty shocking and sickening that this is happening and you see very little being done about it.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  Most of the fentanyl is now made in Mexico. The China pharma labs could all be closed now and it wouldn’t do a thing. The cat is out of the bag.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Guess who taught the Mexicans how to make it?...
- zpthree 4y ago
  China exports precursor chemicals which are manufactured into fentanyl in Mexico and then smuggled in. I don't think it's that big of a scandal that some chemicals are exported from a country that does manufacturing for most of the world. We should focus on our own culture and society that has resulted in young people destroying their lives for a drug.
  - hammock 4y ago
    China also has a hand in building the Mexican labs and training the people there how to make fent
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
MBCook 4y ago
> The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year. For comparison NHTSA recorded just under 43,000 car accident deaths in the US in 2021. That’s also very close to the 2020 death by suicide number of 45,000. That’s 25% more opioid deaths per year than our both cars and suicides COMBINED. In fact we could add in the 19,000 Americans who were killed with guns in homicides in 2020. Cars + Gun Homicides + Suicides = 107,000. Still less than opioid deaths by a few thousand. It’s bad out there.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  Keep in kind, some of the opioid deaths are effectively suicide. They might not be classified as such but rest assured plenty of those people reach their limit and take their own lives. So yeah, it's *really* bad out there.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    We’ve all heard for many years how horrible the opioid crisis is. I’ve probably heard that 110,000 number at some point. But without putting it in context of the big (non-medical) causes of death it’s hard to understand just how crazily big that number really is.
colechristensen 4y ago
That’s such a big difference, is there perhaps a difference in the ways these things are counted?

ysleepy 4y ago

Harm reduction policies work.

r00fus 4y ago
But going beyond opioid deaths, Europe in general has a) decent medical coverage b) meaningful employment protections and c) better overall social safety net Apparently the poor are most at-risk from this crisis according to a large study [1] - so maybe the fix isn't just harm reduction, but alleviating the existential crisis we put people of lower income in the US - making them more susceptible to drug addiction & death [1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/large-study-links-lower-income-deaths-opioid-overdoses https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/large-study-links-lower-...
- bravura 4y ago
  Also, Europe doesn't have a fentanyl crisis because we have cheap, pure heroin. The Afghani-Europe heroin pipeline is so old, tightly organized, and efficient that there is little need for an alternative. By comparison, shipping heroin across the Pacific is costly risky business, because it's easier to detect and seize. Hence the need for fentanyl which is orders of magnitude stronger and can be created in impromptu labs. This gets particularly dicey for every "party drug" users in the states, because a white powder that would be relatively harmless is subject to accidental cross-contamination. [edit based upon reading comments below: Yeah, if you live in the US and your friends take coke or ketamine, you should have Narcan.] Opiate users are addicts but they're not stupid. Nearly all greatly prefer reliable heroin to the risk of OD'ing. Hence why fentanyl hasn't become a thing in Europe. A reputation for killing your customers is bad for business. Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis?
  - baremetal 4y ago
    >Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? Because it has an amphetamine crisis?
    - selectodude 4y ago
      I thought all the kids do ketamine now.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Because cocaine is easily available?
  - Stagnant 4y ago
    I'm completely talking out of my ass here but I feel like how relatively uncommon meth is in EU compared to US has to do with ingredients being a lot harder to get in the EU area. Crystal is common in the US while in EU that is extremely rare, the meth on eu market is usually powder or rock. I'm assuming most of crystal meth in the US comes from mexico and they don't bother to ship that much of it overseas as stuff like cocaine has higher profits and a bigger market.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    > Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? Not enough free space. It takes a lot of room to make meth because anyone nearby can easily tell. It is going to change soon because Afghanistan is starting to make it.
  - extraduder_ire 4y ago
    > Bonus question: Why does Europe not have a methaphetamine crisis? I've always thought that it was because all the precursors for meth get used to make MDMA.Though it's probably more of a culture/economic thing. Europe definitely has some meth in it.
- refurb 4y ago
  Ummm... Canada has universal health, lots of employment protection and a better social safety net. And opioid overdoses are similar to the US per capita. British Colombia had 2,306 deaths in 2022, and adjusted by population that's 132,000, so more than the US.
- Gasp0de 4y ago
  As far as I understood it so far, it was actually companies that pushed (legal) opioid consumption in the US? They influenced doctors to prescribe lots of opioids, and then people get addicted and start buying it off the streets.
version_five 4y ago
Years ago (2017 ish) I remember reading an article where they interviewed some French public health or law enforcement people about whether they were concerned about the opioid problem coming there, and they basically said no, we have lots of treatment options here (which I understood to mean more legal access to opiates) so it's not a problem. The drug way is entirely the cause of all of this. I'm generally right wing but when I see the nonsense about the illegal immigration / border crossing being in any way related to the overdose problem, I find it idiotic. Its squarely a problem with how we've handled drug prohibition
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Several societies (incl France) offer codeine over the counter and have much lower opioid usage rates. I think there would be a lot of benefit to legalizing at least one molecule in each drug class for OTC recreational use, chosen based on harm reduction standards like toxicity, therapeutic index, and duration. I think so much of the drug war's ills could be headed off by making codeine and vyvanse OTC - destroying demand for dirtier more dangerous drugs would do enough good to offset the increased abuse rate for these particular chemicals.
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Vyvanse might be tough to OTC. It's still quite possible to get increasing need to take more and more and get psychosis.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  France has plenty of other drug problems, the most obvious being crack cocaine. You can walk around the parts of Paris to most obviously see this yourself, if you're curious. In fact a huge amount of violence in the banlieues relates to drugs.

WheatMillington 4y ago

Are Americans just permanently zonked on powerful prescription painkillers 24/7? Hard to understand how doctors are legitimately prescribing enough of this medicine to kill this many people.

esaym 4y ago
It is a money maker https://youtu.be/KAJ-lTtt4yk https://youtu.be/KAJ-lTtt4yk
- scotty79 4y ago
  That's the answer to all weird things in US. It makes someone money.
floxy 4y ago
I don't think most people are ODing from prescription abuse. It is fentanyl. I'd be interested to know how many are being poisoned by fentanyl-laced drugs, vs. fentanyl addicts who OD. Maybe that stat would be too hard to come by?
- ransom1538 4y ago
  Yes. Its a deadly combo. Tons of cheap opioids flowing in from Mexico made with Chinese chemicals. There is no way to stop it. Flood the EU with tons of cheap fentanyl for a fair comparison.
  - mysterydip 4y ago
    > There is no way to stop it. Isn't this what "the wall" and securing the borders was supposed to be for?
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Yea but that doesn't work because that's not where its coming through

mattigames 4y ago

In the US many opiod makers of things like fentanyl spray and Oxycontin bribed doctors to prescribe it so a lot of those deaths are a direct cause of that, sources: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-former-chairman-board-insys-therapeutics-sentenced-66-months-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-former-chairm... https://www.voanews.com/a/us-states-purdue-pharma-reach-new-settlement-in-oxycontin-lawsuit-/6468808.html https://www.voanews.com/a/us-states-purdue-pharma-reach-new-...

blindriver 4y ago

China is purposefully funneling fentanyl into the US to create this opioid catastrophe. Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death of young people these days. It's pretty shocking and sickening that this is happening and you see very little being done about it.

atdrummond 4y ago
Most of the fentanyl is now made in Mexico. The China pharma labs could all be closed now and it wouldn’t do a thing. The cat is out of the bag.
- hammock 4y ago
  Guess who taught the Mexicans how to make it?...
zpthree 4y ago
China exports precursor chemicals which are manufactured into fentanyl in Mexico and then smuggled in. I don't think it's that big of a scandal that some chemicals are exported from a country that does manufacturing for most of the world. We should focus on our own culture and society that has resulted in young people destroying their lives for a drug.
- hammock 4y ago
  China also has a hand in building the Mexican labs and training the people there how to make fent
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

MBCook 4y ago

> The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year. For comparison NHTSA recorded just under 43,000 car accident deaths in the US in 2021. That’s also very close to the 2020 death by suicide number of 45,000. That’s 25% more opioid deaths per year than our both cars and suicides COMBINED. In fact we could add in the 19,000 Americans who were killed with guns in homicides in 2020. Cars + Gun Homicides + Suicides = 107,000. Still less than opioid deaths by a few thousand. It’s bad out there.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
Keep in kind, some of the opioid deaths are effectively suicide. They might not be classified as such but rest assured plenty of those people reach their limit and take their own lives. So yeah, it's *really* bad out there.
- MBCook 4y ago
  We’ve all heard for many years how horrible the opioid crisis is. I’ve probably heard that 110,000 number at some point. But without putting it in context of the big (non-medical) causes of death it’s hard to understand just how crazily big that number really is.

colechristensen 4y ago

That’s such a big difference, is there perhaps a difference in the ways these things are counted?