Drug crisis pushes up mortality rate for Americans in their prime
By
Shelley Connor
10 June 2017
A recent analysis of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) records by the Washington Post points to a growing mortality rate for 25- to 45-year-olds across nationalities and ethnicities. For the first time, mortality rates are increasing without respect to geographic or racial boundaries, a harsh reflection of the widespread economic decline of America’s workers.
According to the Post ’s analysis, alcohol-related deaths increased among white, black, and Hispanic Americans. Homicide, the leading cause of death for young African-Americans, has risen steadily since 2010. However, among all these factors, the juggernaut of the opioid epidemic appears to be driving most of the increasing mortality rates among 25- to 44-year-olds.
Well in advance of Barack Obama’s 2016 pronouncement that “things have never been better” for America, opioid-related deaths were skyrocketing. According to the CDC, the number of opioid overdoses has quadrupled since 1999. The rate of deaths from drug overdoses has steadily increased, jumping from 14.1 percent in the second quarter of 2014 to 15.2 percent in 2015. By the CDC’s most recent estimates, there was a 19 percent increase between 2015 and 2016. The agency estimates more than 59,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016. This is greater than the number of American casualties for the duration of the Vietnam War.
From 2012 to 2013, Jefferson County, Alabama’s most populous region, saw heroin overdoses increase by over 200 percent. Heroin-related deaths have since decreased in Jefferson County, but overdoses have increased, with Fentanyl—a synthetic opioid that is estimated to be 50 times more powerful than morphine—now claiming…