CDC finds dramatic rise in drug deaths
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
Fri Feb 9, 6:57 PM ET

Unintentional fatal drug overdoses in the United States nearly doubled from 1999 to 2004, overtaking falls to become the nation's second-leading cause of accidental death, behind automobile crashes, the government reported.

The number of accidental drug overdose deaths rose from 11,155 in 1999 to 19,838 in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report was based on death certificates, which do not clearly detail which drugs played the greatest role. But CDC researchers said they believe sedatives and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin were the chief cause of the increase.

OxyContin has been blamed for hundreds of deaths across the country in recent years, becoming such a scourge in Appalachia that it is known as "hillbilly heroin."

Deaths from falls climbed between 1999 and 2004 at a more modest rate, from 13,162 to 18,807, the CDC said. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 40,965 fatalities in 1999 and 43,432 in 2004.

The South had one of the lowest fatal drug overdose rates in the nation in 1999, but it doubled by 2004. The South now ties the West for having the highest rate — about 8 per 100,000 population.

"This is the first study really to describe the large relative increases in poisoning mortality rates in rural states. Historically, the drug issue has been seen as an urban problem," said Dr. Len Paulozzi, a CDC epidemiologist.

The federal report, issued this week, noted that accidental drug overdoses remain most common in men and in people 35 to 54. But the most dramatic increases in death rates were for white females, young adults and Southerners

Other findings:

• The death rates for men remained roughly twice the rate for women, but the female rate doubled from 1999 to 2004 while the male rate increased by 47 percent.

• The rate for white women rose more dramatically than for any other gender group, to 5 deaths per 100,000 population.

• The rate of overdose deaths among teens and young adults, ages 15 to 24, is less than half that of the 35-to-54 group. But it rose much more dramatically, climbing 113 percent in the study years, to 5.3 deaths per 100,000 population.

About 50 percent of the deaths in 2004 were attributed to narcotics and hallucinogens, a category that includes heroin, cocaine and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin.

Earlier research suggests that deaths from illegal drugs appear to be holding steady.

"There is a misperception that because a drug is a prescription medicine, it's safe to use for non-medical reasons. And clearly that is not true," said Dr. Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, a pain medicine expert at Atlanta's Emory Crawford Long Hospital.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070209...ZulYJEk3jRa24cA

I have confidence that the FDA will do the smart thing and ban these prescription and non prescription drugs. (sarcasim)

But it points out the hypocrisy of the FDA.

You get a handful of deaths - per year - from people taking andro and ephedra - and they are banned.

You get 19,838 deaths per year -- and that is okay -- because they are prescription drugs and the pharma companies and doctors are making money.

Drug czar: Use of illegal drugs is down By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer
Fri Feb 9, 11:48 PM ET

Illegal drug use in the United States has dropped sharply since 2001 but abuse of prescription drugs remains a problem, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said Friday.

John Walters said that President Bush's anti-drug plan for 2007-08 is to reduce prescription drug abuse by 15 percent over three years. The administration ranks the problem second only to marijuana.

The plan singled out the pain reliever OxyContin as one of the prescription drugs most abused. It calls for more states to adopt prescription drug monitoring programs to prevent "doctor-shopping" to get prescriptions for more drugs.

Walters said overall use of illegal drugs among young people is down 23 percent from 2001, with 840,000 fewer teenagers using drugs now. He credited drug testing for much of the decline and urged its expansion in schools. He also said abuse among older people declined.

About 1,000 school districts carry out drug tests, which can trigger an intervention that keeps a young drug abuser from carrying the habit into adulthood, Walters said. Despite some concerns for invasion of privacy, he said, the United States will "look stupid in five or ten years if we don't do this."

Walters said the data came from a survey done at the University of Michigan for the National Institute For Substance Abuse. The report says about 19.7 million Americans reported using at least one illegal substance in the previous month.

In Washington, D.C, Bill Piper, director of affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, called the strategy a "spin on the failure of the war on drugs."

He said in a statement that despite incarcerating millions of Americans, drugs are as available as ever and the related harms of addiction, overdose, and the spread of disease continue to mount.

Piper said drug use rates are less important than whether the death, disease, crime and other suffering associated with abuse go up or down.

Personally, I'd put my money on the influence of CSI as much as any change in our drug habits.

Just like you used to die in a car wreck, and now they MAY attribute some of the death to alcohol. Ditto some of the other alcohol-related deaths.

Oxycodine is vital to them that need it, and geneally only fatal if crushed and taken all at once. Does that make the pharmas evil? Similarly, vicodin is the only thing that works for the people for whom nothing else works, and I've read there are some blood tests that can indicate for whom it's not safe.

Given my recent (and on-going) spin through a number of pain medications without which I would be flat on the couch, useful to no-one, I hate to see prescription painkillers so broadly tarred. My diet hasn't changed--it's as healthy as anyone's on this board. Pain is its own phenomenon.