Once again the obesity epidemic is the root cause.
Addiction to prescription painkillers — which kill thousands of Americans a year — has become a largely unrecognized epidemic, experts say.
In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year, says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers — opium-like drugs that include morphine and codeine — more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to recently released CDC statistics.
In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. Prescription painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine however, as the leading cause of fatal overdoses, Paulozzi says.
Experts say it’s easy to see why so many Americans are abusing painkillers. As Americans age and carry extra pounds, more are asking for pain relief to cope with joint problems, back pain and other ailments.
foodconsumer.org – Deadlier than Cocaine, Heroin, and the Swine Flu?
This is depressing.
Laoch´s last blog ..Noteworthy
It is, even more depressing to go into a nursing home and see patients in their 40’s & 50’s so obese they can no longer walk or take care of themselves and now must live in a nursing home.
I have a friend/neighbor who broke up with a boyfriend just over a year ago. Unbeknownst to her, (she’s in her 50’s, he in his 60’s) he was going with her to visit neighbors, and stealing their prescription drugs! In fact, they were looking to buy a house, and he wanted to go on nearly every house tour. She didn’t realize until much later that he was setting her up to make small-talk with the realtor in charge, while he would “just have to run back and check out that bathroom.” And of course he was perusing the medicine cabinet! She ended up catching him and was so embarrassed. As she was a just-retired school teacher and quite well known in town, and well thought of. She recently heard that he got married, and the woman was warned. Of course, they never listen, do they? Until it’s too late. She too will end up hurt and disillusioned, as this man doesn’t think he has a problem. He was once a pharmaceutical salesman, and probably had a lot of drugs at his disposal. A crying shame. If it’s a prescription, and therefore “legal” they aren’t “real” drug addicts.
Brenda
You should see the obese people on scooters here.
To me, the saddest sight is overweight children.
Brenda yes prescription drugs are legal BUT only for the person the doctor wrote the prescription for, not thieves. Some times when I see obese people I often wonder if it is to many calories, or if they have a serious medical problem (kidney) my sister was always a heavy person then came the day to removed one of her kidneys a wow it was like someone let the air out of a balloon she went from huge to small in a minuet, it was her kidney letting all the waste build up in her body till she got to be so obese and that was when she was only 21, and by the time she was 32 and obese again she died, they did not have kidney transplants in those days, in fact it was the same year 1967 that she died that they were talking about kidney transplants. so just remember all fat people are not that way because they enjoy food so much, some might just be really sick……..