Opioids: The most deadly intoxicant?
In the year 1971, The United States of America passed the Controlled Substance act(CSA;Title 21, USC). Now, almost 50 years later, Addiction Center estimates that around 21 million Americans have at least one substance addiction. Although not all of these drugs are elicit, and controlled, drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990. Most deaths related to substance abuse come from over-intoxication, or accidents related to over-intoxication.
There are a-lot of different types of substances that people tend to abuse, from nicotine to methamphetamine. Drugs by nature are very complex arrangements of chemicals, that can be skewed into something new over-night. The three main categories of drugs are stimulants, depressants, and hallucinogens. Initial due-process may lead you to believe that among the most dangerous of these is a stimulant, with outstanding alumni such as Methamphetamine, Cocaine, Adderall, however, in the United States, 93% of drug-related deaths involve the use of opiates, often mixed with other drugs, such as amphetamines, marijuana, and alcohol.
In the past year, the primary cause of accidental death related to substance abuse has been drug overdose. This is likely due to the overwhelming releases of “mimic” drugs, which are usually manufactured for a cheaper price. These “mimics” can often be more dangerous, and have a lower dosage rate than the drug it is attempting to steal the identity of.
Among the drugs most commonly faked are Heroine, and Hydrocodone. These drugs can be chemically bonded to horrible toxins, such as fentanyl. While not all opiates need to be fake to be lethal, for example Heroin; mock-ups can be extremely dangerous, like Heroin’s cheap-skate counterpart: Krokodil.
The most common place for these accidents to occur is in the comfort of the user’s own home. From this information it can be inferred that the majority of people who die in such an event either don’t know they are dying, or are unable to make it to a hospital. The number’s are astounding when you take into account that the model is only of deaths related to opiates, which accounts for 93% of the data.
So what is to come of this freshly enlightened information? How will opiates fare against other drugs in the future. Based on the previous data, these are my predictions for what is coming in the following year:
The algorithm returned primarily neutral data, with Opiate-based deaths barely coming ahead. However, there is one serious variable in our environment that I cannot account for: The Opioid Crisis. Therefore, these predictions could end up being very valid, or other drugs, like amphetamines could take the prize this year for the United States’ most dangerous intoxicant.
