Drug overdose Archives – Addiction Treatment Strategies | Addiction Treatment Strategies

The death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis in the CDC Vital Signs report released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This new finding shows that more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin), methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), and oxymorphone (Opana).
 
“Overdoses involving prescription painkillers are at epidemic levels and now kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, ” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “States, health insurers, health…

The death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis in the CDC Vital Signs report released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This new finding shows that more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin), methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), and oxymorphone (Opana).
“Overdoses involving prescription painkillers are at epidemic levels and now kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, ” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “States, health insurers, health…

The death of a man this week in East Alton potentially is the 22nd fatal heroin overdose of 2011, a number four times greater than what Madison County saw just four years ago, the coroner said Tuesday.
“In 2008, we had five cases; in 2009, seven; in 2010, 18,” Coroner Stephen Nonn said. “There is definitely a problem here. We’re not even halfway through the year.”
An autopsy was conducted Tuesday on Jessie S. Outhouse, 29, who died at his home in the 200 block of Westwood Place in East Alton; his body was found Monday. Results of the toxicology tests will not be known for several weeks, but if they bear out, the…

Unintentional overdose deaths in teens and adults have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. In some 20 states in 2007 the number of unintentional drug poisoning deaths exceeded either motor vehicle crashes or suicides, two of the leading causes of injury death. Prescription opioid pain medications are driving this overdose epidemic. Opioid pain medications were also involved in about 36 percent of all poisoning suicides in the U.S. in 2007.
 
In a commentary article released ahead of the print version in the April 19, 2011 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, physicians affiliated with the U.S. Centers for Disease…

 Heroin use is rising in St. Louis suburbs, and it’s becoming the drug of choice.
According to officials, heroin-related overdoses and deaths have spiked from last year.
In Madison County, Ill. the number of deaths caused by the drug have doubled since 2010.
After three men from Granite City Tuesday were found dealing the drug, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced it will start investigating heroin overdoses as an attempted homicide.
Anyone who is caught distributing the drug to someone who overdoses could face a minimum of 20 years in prison. The maximum sentence would be life in prison.
The three suspects from Granite City caught…