Within a few hours on a late summer day this year, 27 people in the West Virginia town of Huntington were rushed to the emergency room because of heroin, fentanyl, and other opioid overdoses. The problem is a growing one: In 2014 more than 47,000 Americans died from opioid and other drug overdoses and 2.6 million Americans suffer opioid addiction. This costs the nation about $78.5 billion in health care costs, and drug overdoses have claimed eight times as many U.S. lives between 2000 and 2014 as in the Vietnam War—a half million. Last month, the Surgeon General issued a landmark report on “Facing Addiction in America,“ noting that only 1 in 10 of the 20.8 million Americans with a substance-abuse disorder gets treatment.
Read Full Article »
