AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS IS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL
" Covid-19 Lockdown, Increasingly Potent Drugs, Worsing Mental Health, And Continued Lack Of Real Response From The Federal Government."
June 18, 2021 By Art Fletcher & Leo Madison Reporting For: Englebrook Independent News,
WASHINGTON- Covid-19 lockdowns, increasingly potent drugs, worsening mental health, and The Federal Government not properly addressing the issue, America has seen Opioid-Involved overdose deaths accelerate at an alarming rate.
As Covid-19 raged across America, claiming the lives of more than 600,000 people, another epidemic is quietly spiraling out of control. America's Opioid crisis is nothing new, but in the twelve months ending May 2020, more than 81,000 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose, up from 50,000 in 2019, and now in 2021, drug overdose deaths are continuing to increase.
Although, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that was the largest number of Fatal Drug Overdoses for a twelve month period ever, suggesting an acceleration of overdose deaths as the Pandemic took hold.
Synthetic Opioids, such as Fentanyl, are now the most common drug involved overdose deaths in the U.S., increasing 38.4 percent from 2019 to 2020. During that period, ten states reported over a 98 percent increase in Synthetic Opioid involved deaths, the CDC said.
Since 2011, Opioid prescribing has been cut by more than sixty percent, but the knock-on effect is that those suffering from addiction to pharmaceuticals like Oxycodone continue to turn to Street Dealers who are unregulated and are selling Fentanyl among other similar, dangerous potent Synthetics, account for the large percent of drug related overdose deaths.
The misuse of, and addiction to opioids including Prescription Pain Relievers, Heroin, and Synthetic Opioids such as Fentanyl is a serious crisis that affects Public Health as well as Social and Economic Welfare. The CDC estimates that the total economic burden of Prescription Opioid Misuse alone in The United States is $78.4 Billion a year including the costs of Health-Care, Lost Productivity, Addiction Treatment, and Criminal Justice Involvement.
We ask ourselves, " How Could This Happen ? " In the early 2000's, Pharmaceutical Companies reassured the Medical Community that patients would not become addicted to prescription Opioid Pain Relievers, with that, healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications, before it became clear that these medications were indeed highly addictive. Opioid overdose rates began to increase.
Taking a look back at 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an Opioid Overdose, including Prescription Opioids, Heroin, and Illicitly manufactured Fentanyl, a powerful Synthetic Opioid. That same year, an estimated 1.7 million people in The United States suffered from substance use disorder related to prescription Opioid Pain Relievers, and 652, 000 from Heroin use disorder.
According to The Federal Statistics the number of drug related overdose deaths of Americans spiked from 47,000 in 2017 to the actual numbers deaths caused by Opioid overdoses increased to an alarming 88,981 by the close of 2020, an increase of 41,981 deaths during that three year period.
According to The CDC's Vital Statistics Rapid Release-Provisional Number of Drug Overdose Deaths by Drug or Drug Class, Based on Data Available for Analysis on June 9, 2021, although the Data is not complete, numbers of reported Drug Overdose in all 50 States reveal that 2021 might be the deadliest year with the predicted number potentially increasing to just around 100,000 Deaths.
According to The National Institute for Drug Abuse, the Annual Drug Abuse Cost to America is estimated to be $740 Billion and growing. There is something drastically wrong with the Nations Policies and Funding to combat drug addiction, when over the period between 2011 to 2021 the total cost of addiction to The United States has reached over $5,3 Trillion. We need to come to the realization that our Government's approach to fight drug addiction is not working.
President Biden has increased spending by $811 Million in his fiscal year 2022 budget to end drug abuse, but yet he allows hundreds of pounds of Fentanyl to flow across the southern border from Mexico everyday, why Border Agents are preoccupied with tending to the almost a million migrants have crossed our border so far this year.
The recent spike in crime throughout the Nation is also a direct result of Opioid along with other illicit drug abuse, sixty-three percent of all reported crimes have proven to be related narcotic abuse and distribution nationwide.
We need to ask ourselves, "when is this going to come to an end," it is becoming ever more apparent that we are no longer safe when travelling outside of our homes, you cannot even exit a form of Metropolitan Public Transportation without stepping on a syringe or some other type of Drug Paraphernalia. Our City Parks and Streets are littered with empty glassine bags, from Fentanyl or Heroin use.
The CDC's stance for the reason of increases in Drug Overdose Deaths in 2020, was due to the Pandemic, that statement is a farce, why then have overdose death increased year after year since the late 1990's. Why are our tax dollars going towards funding such agencies like the CDC and NIH, hundreds of billions of dollars every year, maybe so the agency's bureaucratic Directors, Doctors, and employees can pay themselves $150,000 to $400,000 a year in salaries, so they can continuing to write failed studies and treatment plans that continually fail in correcting a serious national issue.
We need to call upon our elected leaders to allow private sector individuals to correct the drug abuse problem in our Nation that is continuing to spiral out of control. Recently our Vice President when called out, that she has not been to the border, responding that she hasn't been to Europe either, since she shows no interest in going to our Southern Border, maybe she could visit some of The Nation's Cities to experience, just how severe the Drug Abuse problem is playing out across the nation.
FILED UNDER JUNE 18, 2021: NATIONAL, OPINION: