Four in 10 say they know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers
When the average literacy rate of adult Americans, hovering around the SIXTH GRADE.. you want them to be the ones determining who is “addicted” to prescription pain killers. I wonder how many of these people could describe the difference between OPIATE DEPENDENCE and OPIATE ADDICTION ? File this under JUNK SCIENCE
Nearly four in 10 people know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers, including 25 percent who say it was a close friend or family member and 2 percent who acknowledge their own addiction, according to a new poll.
The Kaiser Family Foundation survey released Tuesday also reveals that 16 percent say they know someone who has died from an overdose of prescription painkillers, including 9 percent who say that person was a family member or close friend.
[Thousands of drug users are rescuing each other with antidote naloxone]
“A surprising 56 percent of the public say they have some personal connection to the issue — either because they say they know someone who has taken a prescription that wasn’t prescribed to them, know someone who has been addicted or know someone who has died from a prescription painkiller overdose,” according to the poll of 1,352 people conducted from Nov. 10 to 17. Thirty-nine percent said they knew someone who has been addicted to the prescription medications, which include oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine.
The United States continues to suffer from an epidemic of opioid addiction, with 16,235 overdose deaths from prescription medications in 2013 and another 8,260 from heroin. Experts say the surge in heroin use was sparked by its cheaper price and wide availability after authorities began cracking down on the abuse of prescription opioids.
The Kaiser poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, shows that connection to prescription painkiller abuse is more common among whites (63 percent), the affluent (63 percent among people with incomes of $90,000 or more), the young and the middle aged (62 percent for people aged 18-29 and 61 percent for people aged 30-49).
[When life begins in rehab]
But it has not spared other U.S. racial or demographic groups: Fifty-six percent of people who earn less than $40,000 report a connection to the epidemic, while 44 percent of blacks and 37 percent of Hispanics say they have an association as well.
By a margin of 77 percent to 58 percent, those polled say it is easy to get non-prescribed painkillers than say it is easy for people who medically need the drugs to get them.
Read more:
In chilling accounts, Paris doctors tell of war-like effort to save hundreds of wounded after attacks
This diet study upends everything we thought we knew about ‘healthy’ food
7 country study on fairness: Kids everywhere can’t stand getting less — but in some places they don’t like getting more
Cutting sugar from kids’ diets appears to have a beneficial effect in just 10 days
‘Needless suffering and death, social and economic havoc’: Ebola report cites egregious failure by countries, WHO
Filed under: General Problems
Just say no to drugs
Nots in stock see you in 7 days lol
Damn, I don’t remember anyone asking me any of these questions. It always cracks me up when I see the results of polls taken by a bureaucratic organization. I mean, who do they poll anyway because I don’t believe that it’s the teal general public?