10 Statistics about the prescription painkiller epidemic that will absolutely shock you.

10 Statistics about the prescription painkiller epidemic that will absolutely shock you.

If you’ve turned on the evening news, clicked on an article on social media, or picked up your Sunday newspaper, then chances are that you’ve caught wind of the one of the biggest health crisis ever to hit the United States – the prescription painkiller epidemic. Many of us even have friends or family that were legally prescribed painkillers and developed a dependency – or worse.

Percocet,  Oxycodone, Codeine, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Methadone, Morphine, and Fentanyl are all highly addictive and often end up being abused by patients. However, they are also widely over-prescribed in today’s society, often for pain or injuries that would be best first treated and managed with chiropractic care.

You’ve probably even heard some of the alarming statistics and seen the grim data on this legal opioid problem. So today, I wanted to start with something different before I cover the stats and facts about the dangers of prescription opioids.

Out of a nation in crisis, West Virginia is the state with the highest level of opioid abuse, addiction, deaths, as well as the heroin dependency that often ensues. Why is that?

In between 2006 and 2016, pharmaceutical drug manufacturers sent 21 million opioid painkillers to just two pharmacies in Williamson, West Virginia. That town has a population of only 2,900 people. But that’s not even the worst of it, as the town of Kermit, WV has one pharmacy that received shipments of 9 million Hydrocodone (like Vicodin) pills over just a recent two-year period. By the way, I should probably mention that the population of Kermit is only 392 people.

In fact, between 2007 and 2012 – just a five-year period – drug companies released a total of 780 million painkillers into the state of West Virginia, which has a population of 1.8 million people.

As a Doctor of Chiropractic, I find this especially alarming since, too often, MDs are over-prescribing these painkillers without addressing the root cause. Of course, there’s a time and a place for prescription medication as well as traditional medical treatment. But in many cases, such as whiplash from car accidents, sports injuries, back pain, and neck pain, it would be a good idea to visit me first to explore treatment options that are natural and safe – and don’t involve prescription opioids or any other medications.

Here are 10 more shocking facts about the prescription opioid painkiller epidemic in the United States:

1. According to The National Institute of Health, between 5 and 8 million Americans regularly take opioid painkillers to manage some form of long-term chronic pain. (Around 1.5-2.5% of the entire population.)
2. It’s also been well-documented how addictive those opioid painkillers are. In fact, Drugabuse.gov estimates that 2.1 million Americans suffer from substance abuse disorders stemming from prescription opioid pain relievers.
3. However, according to research by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, at least 11.5 million Americans (age 12 and up) misused prescription pain medicine at least once in 2016.
4. In 2016, Hydrocodone (Vicodin) was the most commonly prescribed opioid (as it has been since 2007). In fact, 6.2 billion Hydrocodone pills were prescribed and sold in 2016. And 5 billion Oxycodone, like the commonly used Percocet, were likewise distributed in 2016.
5. According to the International Narcotics Control Board, Americans now consume 99.7% of the world’s total hydrocodone consumption!
6. So, it’s not hard to realize why there were 64,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016, which represents an all-time high. In fact, at least two-thirds of those overdose deaths were attributed to opioids.
7. The preliminary numbers for 2017 are even more dire, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that there were 67,000 drug overdoses in 2017, with a similar proportion linked to opioids.
8. In fact, it was those same years that the wave of drug overdoses (the majority of which are caused by prescription opioids) caused a drop in the average life expectancy for Americans, the first time we’ve seen that since the 1960s!
9. Tragically, the dependence on prescription opioids frequently turns to use of illegal opioids, particularly heroin. For that reason, there’s been a meteoric rise in heroin addiction and overdose rates in the U.S. over the last five years. In 2016, about 948,000 Americans age 12 and up (or 0.3% of our total population) used heroin. In 2016 alone, we saw 15,469 overdose deaths from heroin, which have climbed 533% since 2002.
10. In fact, in 2016, 170,000 Americans used heroin…for the very first time. And the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that three in four new heroin users start out using legal prescription opioids.

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If you’re facing pain or some sort of injury, the choice to make an appointment with me (or another Doctor of Chiropractic) first can make a profound difference in your health – and your life.