MSN/Business Insider: One type of legal drug is killing far more people than heroin — and deaths just hit record numbers
In just a year, overdose deaths from opioid painkillers and heroin jumped 14%, hitting record levels in 2014, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday.
Between 2000 and 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from overdoses involving these drugs, which research suggests act similarly in the brain.
The most commonly prescribed opioid painkillers — like oxycodone and hydrocodone — were involved in more overdose deaths than any other type of the drug. Those deaths rose by 9%.
"The increasing number of deaths from opioid overdose is alarming," CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a press release.
Update: Drug Overdose Deaths Hit 'Alarming' New Record in U.S., CDC Says (NBC).
WNU: This caught my eye ....
.... Between 2000 and 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from overdoses involving these drugs
If true .... this tells me that more Americans have died from these drug overdoses than from car accidents/murders/and wars COMBINED!
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