More statistical nonsense....

I guess they do kinda give that impression, but the CDC has nothing to gain from overblowing the problem. It may be emphasizing the worst increases, but the fact that there was nowhere where the numbers went down is rather telling.

I think I linked that page if you want to look at more details. I know I've heard some in-depth news stories on it from actual crisis areas (particular cities for example) and it sounds pretty bad.

Had a good friend lose his 19 y.o. son to heroin two years ago. Typical story of this epidemic: Suburban middle class kid, smart, creative, not someone you'd look at and say 'junkie.' Got in with a bad crowd. The shit is too easy to get, and kids are not afraid of it like so many of us were when we were kids.
 
... and kids are not afraid of it like so many of us were when we were kids.
This is the key. When I was growing up, anything was fair game except for heroin and glue (or huffing in general). Those were considered very poor form because we knew they were a fast road to oblivion.
 
More drugs.
In 1989 L-tryptophan, an essential amino acid necessary for proper brain function, was removed from the market because of a statistical association with a blood disease blood disease .
People had used tryptophan successfully for treating symptoms of depression for years.
The removal from the markets was also well timed with Lillys introduction of the antidepressant Prozac as Tryptophan remained banned by the FDA for sixteen years, even though the source of the bad batch was soon discovered.
 
I have to admit, I made it through half the opening post. Attention span, you see... I digress. Your assertions are sound but there has to be some basis to assess magnitude when comparing items on an actuary table. Using the general population allows us to extract nominal numbers. The example you give indicates opioid deaths outnumber vehicle deaths. I think you could have broken out alcohol related vehicle deaths and compared to opioid deaths. Clearly, non-impaired drivers are safer and less accident prone. What public policy can be applied is beyond the scope of our forum. However, statistics and the meaningful application can indicate where there is a need for public policy.
 
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More drugs.
In 1989 L-tryptophan, an essential amino acid necessary for proper brain function, was removed from the market because of a statistical association with a blood disease blood disease .
People had used tryptophan successfully for treating symptoms of depression for years.
The removal from the markets was also well timed with Lillys introduction of the antidepressant Prozac as Tryptophan remained banned by the FDA for sixteen years, even though the source of the bad batch was soon discovered.
The actual reason for the restriction of L-tryptophan as a dietary supplement was a contamination event that became a case study in the analytical sciences.
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)61354-8/pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8346973
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ds_The_Cases_of_L-Tryptophan_and_L-Citrulline
https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/trypto.html

Structure-of-1-1-ethylidenebis-L-tryptophan-the-contaminant-implicated-in-the.png
 
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The actual reason for the restriction of L-tryptophan as a dietary supplement was a contamination event that became a case study in the analytical sciences.
Yes, as I posted, the deaths were soon determined to be caused by a case of a bad batch(the largest supplier), not synthetic L-tryptophan itself.
And yes it's best to get your nutrients from food.
And yes manufacturing guidelines should be better for all supplements but to shit can all supplements because of one bad batch is BS.
Sixteen years after the discovery of the bad batch, L-tryptophan was allowed back on the market and there are plenty of more recent government studies of depleted levels and declared findings of the supplement to have efficacy for treating aliments with further studies recommended.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908021/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728667/
 
A person that was my best friend at one time was addicted to opioids, for a long time his wife and I didn't know. He hid pretty well for long time but then saw that her pain medication was disappearing. You're not going to die from prescribed opioids unless you decide to OD on a bottle or there is some rare reaction. It's heroin, morphine, street opioids causing the problem but it's the prescribed opioids that usually tempt some to look for the harder stuff. That guy went off the deep-end, he's probably dead now. I had to tell him I thought he was getting dangerous and so I didn't want him in my house anymore.
 
A somewhat successful business man, do not want to say what business, had a accident and was prescribed oxy. This was a guy who did not do drugs and drank on social occasions. Within a year he was found on camera going thru someone's medecine looking for drugs. He was pretty messed up but no one knew. After getting caught he lost his job and had to start over but this was just before the fetinal started killing everyone. Had it happened later he probably would have been exposed to the cheaper stuff and maybe died. That oxy is some bad stuff.
 
A somewhat successful business man, do not want to say what business, had a accident and was prescribed oxy. This was a guy who did not do drugs and drank on social occasions. Within a year he was found on camera going thru someone's medecine looking for drugs. He was pretty messed up but no one knew. After getting caught he lost his job and had to start over but this was just before the fetinal started killing everyone. Had it happened later he probably would have been exposed to the cheaper stuff and maybe died. That oxy is some bad stuff.

A couple of years ago, I contracted shingles. It was a full month of pain that caused many sleepless nights. I was tempted to see a doctor and with my level of pain, I would have gotten something powerful...and addictive. After figuring out on Wikipedia (of all places) that shingles is survivable, I decided not to tempt fate. As your example shows, one never knows what one is susceptible to. It was better for me to tough it out and be whole again.
 
Is that actually known?

Missed this a few days ago. Whether there is anywhere that overdose deaths are going down is a valid question.

I got the info I posted from this page:

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis

Which is kind of an exec summary that does not list comprehensive stats.

I found state-by-state reports here: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state

I don't see anywhere that collects year to year data for every state in one place - there could be, I just didn't see it. You can pull up a page for each state.

Looking at my own state of MO, it has this chart:

ratemissouri.jpg


8x increase in 16 years. Now MO is one of the states in red on the map, with the highest rates (over 15 per 100,000 per year), so maybe we should also pick some random states with the LOWEST rates and see what they did.

ratenebraska.jpg


california_rate.jpg


montana_rate.jpg


So, no, it's not going up everywhere. Based on this small sample, the best we are seeing is pretty flat in some states, with the occasional state (Montana) actually going down some in recent years but still higher than in 2000. This is based on a sample of 4 states so I'm generalizing. But it appears to be a crisis affecting certain areas but not the entire country equally.
 
cali is a tough one....they have been handing out narcan like pez since 1/1/2014 since AB635 was signed.

they recently passed similar in my state and now grocery store pharmacies hand it out for just a smile and a wink...while you can argue that less DEATHS is a good thing, now we worry that with the same, or even increasing usage (if there are no consequences, suck em down!) and the associated impairedness and crime to score hits...how is this ultimately a good thing?

color me less than enthralled
 
cali is a tough one....they have been handing out narcan like pez since 1/1/2014 since AB635 was signed.

they recently passed similar in my state and now grocery store pharmacies hand it out for just a smile and a wink...while you can argue that less DEATHS is a good thing, now we worry that with the same, or even increasing usage (if there are no consequences, suck em down!) and the associated impairedness and crime to score hits...how is this ultimately a good thing?

color me less than enthralled

Neighbor watched her daughter die in her bed overdosed. Nothing was going to stop her from being with her boyfriend. Deaths are counted. Addiction is not. We need to recognize addiction and treat it if possible. Eradication had not worked. The war on drugs is what 50 years old and what has been accomplished?
It didn't help with Amsterdam allowing people to shoot up in public over all these decades. Made it acceptable in some sick way. Perfectly crazy.
 
The doctors I've had here in California, private or HMO, seem to have as a policy the practice of not "handing out" opioids.
Perhaps people find them on the black market.
 
An old sage told me once a long time ago in a far away land that: "Statistics don't lie, but the people making them up...do".

Q
 
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Missed this a few days ago. Whether there is anywhere that overdose deaths are going down is a valid question.

I got the info I posted from this page:

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis

Which is kind of an exec summary that does not list comprehensive stats.

I found state-by-state reports here: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state

I don't see anywhere that collects year to year data for every state in one place - there could be, I just didn't see it. You can pull up a page for each state.

Looking at my own state of MO, it has this chart:

ratemissouri.jpg


8x increase in 16 years. Now MO is one of the states in red on the map, with the highest rates (over 15 per 100,000 per year), so maybe we should also pick some random states with the LOWEST rates and see what they did.

ratenebraska.jpg


california_rate.jpg


montana_rate.jpg


So, no, it's not going up everywhere. Based on this small sample, the best we are seeing is pretty flat in some states, with the occasional state (Montana) actually going down some in recent years but still higher than in 2000. This is based on a sample of 4 states so I'm generalizing. But it appears to be a crisis affecting certain areas but not the entire country equally.
Looking at graphs of incidences in the US, it appears cities east of the Mississippi have the most alarming usage.
 
An old sage told me once along time ago in a far away land that: "Statistics don't lie, but the people making them up...do".

Q
but statistics are 60% fact and 50% voodoo





(Im pretty sure I bastardized something from an old yankees player)
 
The doctors I've had here in California, private or HMO, seem to have as a policy the practice of not "handing out" opioids.
Perhaps people find them on the black market.

Doctors can get in trouble there. The x-friend of mine finally told me where he was getting his pain killers. Some doctors are opioid addicts also, or they just like it. This guy found a doc that was, he'd go in saying he was in pain, the doc would give him a prescription. He'd go get the pills and sell half to the doctor. I have a person in my family that was a doctor, he said it's a problem in the med field because of the stress.
 
Kids are dying left and right around here. Addicts even faster. A few years ago someone could snort a line of heroin and not risk death. They could take what they believed to be a single prescription pill and be OK. While this behavior is unacceptable, it shouldn't be a death sentence. It killed Michael Jackson, Prince and Tom Petty. Just to name a few.
 
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