Far right: Addict shooting up. (Pixabay)
Every year the Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) releases its National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). This year’s results suggests the opioid epidemic isn’t going away soon.
In regards to opioids, the number of people abusing them may be going down, but the number of people dying from overdoses is going up.
Opioid abuse accounts for nearly all of the people 12 and older abusing prescription medicine: 11.5 million out of 11.8 million. Surprisingly (to me at least) the most abused opioids are of the hydrocodone class, including Vicodin, with about 7 million users. Oxycodone opioids – OxyContin, Percocet – only accounted for 4 million. Use of the super opioid fentanyl – 50 times as strong as heroin – was admitted to by a little more than 250,000, while heroin accounted for just under 950,000. More than 640,000 used both prescription opioids and heroin.
According to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, the number of overdose deaths from opioids in general (and heroin in particular) continue to “skyrocket,” from 50,000 in 2015 to more than 60,000 last year, with 2017’s figures expected to be even more. Heroin accounted for more than 13,000 in 2016, less than a quarter of the total.
That’s peanuts compared to the number using marijuana – 37 million – but some percentage of that is in the 29 or so states where at least medical marijuana use is legal (although it remains illegal at the federal level). There’s a huge difference in the number of overdose deaths, too: marijuana has zero.
On Aug. 31 President proclaimed this National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, but so far has done nothing policy wise to assist that recovery. During his 2016 campaign, he promised to do many things, particularly in opioid-ridden New Hampshire. His appointees, such as Secretary Price and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have arguably made things worse, not better, by threatening more draconian drug laws, including enforcing federal recreational and medicinal laws in states where it is deemed legal, and even deriding evidence-based medication-assisted treatments (MAT) such as methadone and buprenorphine (Suboxone) as replacing one addiction with another.
The irony is that more than half of prescription pill abusers didn’t get them from a drug dealer (only 6 percent) or even an unscrupulous pill-mill doctor, but from a friend or relative. MAT, when used as prescribed, is proven to control withdrawal without getting the user high, and help to wean them off the drugs. The crackdown on prescriptions seems to have led to the increase in heroin use and overdose deaths.
And marijuana is believed by many to treat some of the same conditions as opioids (such as chronic pain) and even reduce withdrawal pains from stopping opioids. MDMA (Ecstasy) may help with alcohol detox.
There is a law enforcement component to fighting drug abuse, but not to recovery. Let’s focus more on getting addicts into substance use disorder treatment centers than prison cells.
