Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says:NY Times

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says:NY Times

www.nytimes.com

An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

“You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley, a drug intelligence inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which co-sponsored the study. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that’s what makes things complicated.”

The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing coc aine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 16-6-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

Aaaahh...Here we see a shining example of how well the farcical "war on drugs" has worked. It has worked to turn the pharmaceutical giants into the new kingpins, making billions off of their "legalized" drugs which are now killing people THREE to ONE over the black market "illegal" substances!!

I guess all one needs to be able to do is pay off and lobby the lawmakers with enough money, and then you can become a "legal scarface". lol

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

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[edit on 16/6/2008 by Mirthful Me]

Not surprising but I do wonder about the rate of use between the two classes of drugs. I'm going on assumption but, I would think that there are more users of prescription drugs than there are illegal drugs. Again that is an assumption and something to take into consideration.

However, with that said, i do believe that most prescription drugs can be very dangerous and highly addictive.

Figured this thread should be added here as well.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


alot of dr's are prescribing too much stuff for people when they dont really need it or the patient just needs to change their lifestyle

of course your post is true, we live in a quick fix need it now society instead of people taking responsibility for their actions they can take a pill to make it all better

while in the long run these chemicals are breaking down the natural way the body is designed to contain itself

we are selfish creatures

Not surprsiong at all as there are FAR more legal drug users than illegal so statistically yeah there are going to be more deaths due to legal drugs. Im not sure what the revelation is here?

I have always believed alcohol to be the worst....

In 2001, there were 331 alcohol overdose deaths and 0 marijuana overdose deaths. Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). www.cdc.gov...

Excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1) and is associated with multiple adverse health consequences, including liver cirrhosis, various cancers, unintentional injuries, and violence.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 20,687 “alcohol-induced deaths” (excluding accidents and homicides) in 2003. Source: www.cdc.gov...

The CDC has no reports of “marijuana-induced deaths.” (In reality, there may be 2-5 deaths each year attributed to marijuana, but this article -- bbsnews.net... -- describes how these are actually deaths attributable to other causes but “blamed” on marijuana due to the way the data is collected.)

Read it.

It all has to do with taxes. They knew that well after they tried prohibition.
Yet again, starred and flagged on a DD post!

[edit on 16-6-2008 by Grafilthy]

Originally posted by princeofpeace
Not surprsiong at all as there are FAR more legal drug users than illegal so statistically yeah there are going to be more deaths due to legal drugs. Im not sure what the revelation is here?

Not necessarily....

In fact, these drugs dominate the statistics on drug-related deaths and emergencies. They are associated with most of the deaths attributed to drugs. Hospital emergency rooms report that approximately the same percentage of drug emergencies is due to misuse of legal drugs as compared with misuse of illegal drugs.

Link.

reply to post by Grafilthy


Unfortunately, I didn't see any raw data in that link you gave, and Im a little confused, are you saying that the actual amount of users of legal drugs and illegal drugs is about the same?

reply to post by InSpiteOf

Not the amount of users.....the amount of deaths.

Aspirin kills 1,000 people a year. ASPIRIN!

How many people have been killed by marijuana? (And, for the record, I do not even use marijuana.)

Well this is no suprise to me. Ever read some of the symptoms and side affects that are associated with some of these designer drug products being put on the market?


Seems like the drug ends up being more deadly than the ailment that it is being marketed to treat.

Irregular heart beat, explosive diahrea, headache, nausea, sleep deprivity, skin lesions, gassy and oily discharge etc etc

When you see what these drugs will do to you, it makes good old fashioned crack seem tame by comparison. I had a good friend who's father commited suiced two months after starting a prescribed rotation of Zoloft. He was a normal person before, he only suffered from mild depression and was having trouble sleeping. Not two weeks after he started taking the prescription meds he was a completely different person.

If it is all the same, I will take my chaces with the street drugs. At least there you know what is in it and you know that they arent intentionally trying to poison you or make you insane (bad for business)

[edit on 6/16/08 by BlackOps719]

Whereas over-the-counter drugs, alcohol and cigarettes can all be killers, so can hard illegal drugs like coc aine and heroin.
This is not to say that I think all illegal drugs are rightfully illegal. For example there is marijuana, which is not physically addictive and probably hasn't killed anyone directly. (besides actions taken during trips)
But there are some illegal drugs that are highly addictive and just serve to harm society. (and individuals due to overdoses).

[edit on 16-6-2008 by cloudfire]

All the OP has done here is make the case why illegal drugs should stay illegal.

As other posters have pointed out, doctors are perhaps too eager to hand out pills for a quick fix, and patients are perhaps too eager to get one and an artificial one at that. No doubt, the fact that these drugs are "legal" gives some a false sense of security.

I have never understood the rationale of those in favor of legalizing all drugs when they point out how many people are killed directly or indirectly by legal drugs. Evidently, they want heroin, coc aine, etc. to be legalized and kill as many people as "legal" drugs, because that would be "fair" somehow.

As the statistics by the OP show, we have a big problem with people abusing "legal" drugs. Why in the world would somebody want to make things worse by adding to the list of "legal" drugs that can be abused?

Coconuts kill more people than sharks, definitive proof that the old fable of "man eating sharks" is all a lie created by people with pro-coconut agendas.

But seriously now, alcohol does do our society worse than weed, but the road along alcoholism is a lot more survivable than the road to becoming a tweaker. Personally I'd rather have all drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and Virtualboys stamped out, but two of these things are already well integrated into our society and I think it's best to avoid adding another of these to the our list.*

*Before you compare one country to another, in the US we have an "urban" culture that praises busting caps in cops asses as an art form, whereas other cultures not so much.*

reply to post by GLDNGUN


People are already dieing in large numbers from the unregulated market of illegal drugs; many of them are dieing because their drug of choice is cut with a poisonous agent or because of the cut, the purity of the drug is unknown to the user and they overdose.

If the market is regulated, the users must be registered to purchase the drugs, you can make them take an education course, and provide the tools to them to clean up (access to cheap or free rehab).

Furthermore, by regulating the market, you cut down on the crime levels and street dealings of these drugs, putting a number of gangs out of business.

Im not saying it will be perfect, but prohibition has done nothing to solve the narcotics problem in North America.

Not one mention of steroids here... interesting. According to the government they kill people and 10 year old girls are jamming syrings into themselves in the quest for cosmetic enhancement. These figures concerning pharmaceuticals don't surprise me. The horrible truth is that people think that because they are pills from a doctor they are benign and probably just as safe as water. More people die from acetaminophen every year than marijuana or steroids.

Ahh.. I absolutely LOVE this subject!

The biggest drug epidemic since the beginning of the crack epidemic is occuring as we speak, and has been booming since the late 90's..

Diverted prescription narcotics, and also the abuse of legitely prescribed narcotics by the receiver. Some common brand names include: oxycontin, percocet, vicodin, dilaudid, roxicodone, lortab, tylox, and more. The most commonly abused chemicals in question are semi-synthetic or fully synthetic opioids, that is man-altered/made opiates, and they are as follows: oxycodone hydrochloride, hydrocodone hydrochloride/bicarbonate, morphine sulfate, hydromorphone hydrochloride, and fentanyl hydrochloride. There are more.

These medications cause a dependancy akin to heroin, aka diacetylmorphine hydrochloride, and a withdraw similar to it as well. In fact, all opiates/opioids cause this exact same syndrome of dependancy and withdraw. Even the "wonder drugs" theyre using to get addicts off dope, such as suboxone brand name (buprenorphine hydrochloride) medication, and methadone hydrochloride, both also cause withdraw if abruptly stopped akin to other opiates, opioids, and opiate analogues.

Essentially, the concept is .. get them hooked on the pills, then when they finally have had enough torture, offer them a pill to switch to so they can "quit" the other drug and be "free". But then, they are not free, they are just now on another opiate-related drug that is keeping their brain in order. Should they stop that treatment, it too will cause them a withdraw and essentially the chemical leash is never broken. The only way is to slowly taper down whatever medication in question over weeks and months, until you finally get to zero.

The idea behind CIA smuggling diacetylmorphine into the country to pay for black projects is self-fulfilling. Not only do people become addicts, but they eventually decide to quit if they are not killed by their addiction, and go to a city or state owned methadone clinic. The wealther ones may go to an addiction specialist for suboxone(buprenorphine) treatment instead. Ultimately, the state or the pharmacy/pharmaceutical corp/doctor's office get heaps of cash off of your addiction, which may have been caused by drugs smuggled illicitly into the country.

But today, the largest number of new and current addictions are to the prescription narcotics, they MUCH SURPASS the addictions to heroin. And it rarely is spoken of by the media, because it is kept hush hush. All of the elites in the government likely take pain medications daily for their old akey bones and various conditions and ailments, and you can bet they abuse them just like a heroin addict for their euphoric properties. So they certainly dont want it to be taken off of the markets. And i am not advocating that; I think the opium poppy from which all opiates originate is a god-given gift to mankind for specifically pain relief. But this is the working class, middle class addiction you see, the news anchors have addicts among them, everyone does. Nurses do, Doctors even do! All the upper echelons of society are filled with abusers of prescription narcotics, and thats why you aren't going to hear so much about it on the news, despite being the single largest drug epidemic in the nation.

So, opiates for the masses? Someday they might start spiking the water supply with opiates, get the entire nation addicted, haha. Do as I say! Or you will be sick in withdraw, muhahaha! It would be a good control over the populace no? This is what the Dutch East India Company did to China before and during the Opium wars.

As someone who actually survived the drug-riddled '70s...

All drugs are not created the same. Alcohol is far more addictive than marijuana, kills far more people each year than marijuana, and yet it is not just legal but 'socially-accepted'. Marijuana is illegal and a societal taboo. Why?

Every time you get a prescription filled (at least around here), you get a little fact sheet to go with it. This fact sheet lists possible side effects and dangers associated with the drug. Read one. It is very common to see possible side effects to include things like 'increased risk of stroke', 'increased risk of heart attack', or 'death'. You don't even have to buy a drug to see this; just check out the ads on the good 'ol boob tube. Yet people pay for them and take them readily, and usually for one simple reason: "THE DOCTOR TOLD ME TO".

I would expect that those who knowingly abuse legal drugs, whether by doctor-shopping or through black-market channels did not start doing these legal drugs by themselves. Somewhere a doctor placed them on the drug and they became addicted. I personally know quite a few people I believe are addicted to legal drugs, but who would rather die than look at marijuana, coc aine, or even alcohol. They trust the doctor, who has abused their faith in him and his own Hippocratic oath by prescribing unneeded prescription drugs.

Should we blur the distinction between legal and illegal drugs by stopping this ridiculous 'war on drugs', pharmaceuticals would be looked at more closely in comparison with the 'harder' now-illegal drugs. What would become popularly known is that the legal drugs are usually much more dangerous and addictive than even the hardest street drugs. That would not be a good thing for those who profit so much from a nation who believes that relief lies in that 'little purple pill' they saw on TV; it would be a disaster both financially and legally.

We have placed ourselves into this vicious cycle of feel bad, 'take this drug', get sick, 'now take this drug', get sicker, 'now take this drug', ad infinitum, by declaring certain drugs as legal and therefore 'good', and others as illegal and therefore 'bad'. In reality all drugs are bad, and they are only useful at all in the more extreme cases of illness. But to break out of the cycle, we would have to admit that some doctor saying so doesn't make a substance safe. Heaven forbid we ever do that!

So when you fault the illegal drugs, remember that you faulting blindly. When you declare 'this is why we need the war on drugs', remember that you are continuing the cycle by continuing the deception. Truth is truth, whether you believe it or not, and the simple truth is that things like marijuana are minor compared to Plavix, Viagara, Nexium, etc.

TheRedneck

A star for you redneck....brilliant post.

I also believe that "socially acceptable" is the key here. People tend to look down on others for using recreational drugs that are far safer than traditional (i.e. booze, smokes...etc.) drugs.

reply to post by runetang


Have you done any reading into any of the Ibogaine Research Projects?

Ibogaine is a naturally-occurring alkaloid that comes from the root bark of a shrub native to West Africa. It is used in healing ceremonies and initiations conducted by members of the Bwiti religion in various parts of West Africa. In small doses, it can serve as a stimulant, and in larger doses, it produces a profound psychedelic state. People with problem substance use have found that psychedelic doses of ibogaine can significantly reduce withdrawal from opiates and eliminate substance-related cravings for a period of time.

Not surprising that its a Schedule 1 substance is it?

[edit on 17-6-2008 by InSpiteOf]

[edit on 17-6-2008 by InSpiteOf]