Drugs Now Kill More People Than Car Crashes
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Every 14 minutes, someone dies from drugs, according to a recent examination of government data by the LA Times. What’s worse is that attempts by experts to reverse this trend don’t seem to be working. Drug deaths, fueled by prescription pain and anxiety drugs, now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States,
This is the first time since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979 that drugs have killed more people than cars. Most cases of preventable death are declining. Drugs, however, are the exception. While teens and young people often abuse drugs, even, according to the mother one teen who died of an overdose, attending parties where pills are poured into a bowl and taken without knowledge of what they are taking, now people of all ages are suffering from drug-induced deaths. Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, yet the death toll is highest among people in their 40s, according to data from The Centers for Disease Control.