How half of the 80,000 overdoses a year are caused by MEDICINES

Around half of the 80,000 deaths a year attributed to drug overdoses in America are caused by medication, new figures suggest today.

They also show that the rate of all drug overdoses in the U.S. has more than than doubled over the last decade.

A database maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics keeps a tally of all deaths listed on certificates, which are required by law to include an underlying cause.

Many also contain information about additional sub-categories that led to the death, such as illegal drugs like cocaine and MDMA or ones that are far more common in society like caffeine and pharmaceuticals.

By first collating deaths listed as ‘accidental poisoning’, intentional self-poisoning’, ‘assault by drugs’ and ‘poisoning with undetermined intent’ then analysing the sub-categories, it appears around 50 per cent of overdose deaths involve medicines.

Worrying: This graph produced by Popular Science shows the rate of overdose deaths caused by different drugs according to analysis of figures from the National Center for Health Statistics database

Nearly three-quarters of those are opioid analgesics – prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database by Popular Science reveals.

The website, which has produced a graphic illustrating the number of deaths caused by different drugs, says that while cocaine, heroin and alcohol all warrant their on stripe on the chart, others like marijuana and LSD barely register at all.

It notes that the rate of total reported overdoses has more than doubled between 1999 and 2010.

Some subcategories are limited in their detail and many drugs are included in umbrella terms such as ‘psychostimulants’.

Around a quarter of all overdose death certificates don’t have the toxicity test results listed at all, so they are labelled in the ‘unspecified’ stripe on the graph.

Popular Science points out that some people had several drugs listed on their death certificate so they have been counted twice.

It also notes that the database doesn’t include non-U.S. residents or U.S nationals living abroad.

Published at The Daily Mail, April 24, 2014.

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