US drug abuse patterns have suddenly shifted over the past decade. Prescription painkiller overdoses used to hover around the number of overdoses from heroin.

US drug abuse patterns have suddenly shifted over the past decade. Prescription painkiller overdoses used to hover around the number of overdoses from heroin. In a few short years, they increased sixfold. http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-health/heroin-use-in-the-united-states-data-and-recent-trends http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-health... http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescription-drug-abuse http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescr... http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2013/07/prescription-painkillers-are-claiming-more-womens-lives http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2013/07/presc... "Lojack in everything" is really cool, could push us towards a theftless society. We still have a lot of work to help people escape drug dependency, though. Planet Money had an episode on Suboxone, a pill used to treat addiction, that was a pretty alarming look inside the insanity of US drug policy: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157665908/episode-391-the-anti-addiction-pill-thats-big-business-for-drug-dealers http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157665908/episode-... They see Suboxone as a sort of "miracle drug," a few people object to that description: http://www.thefix.com/content/trapped-suboxone http://www.thefix.com/content/trapped-suboxone Either way, the podcast does a great job at illustrating just how complicated and intimately political pharmaceutical manufacturing has become.