[NYPOST] The US is now experiencing its greatest overall rates of death in more than a century — and it’s being fueled by a sharp rise in drug overdoses.Experts from Florida Atlantic University analyzed trends in US drug overdose deaths, and discovered that the rates of those deaths spiked 4.4 times from 1999 to 2020.
In 1999, there were 6.9 overdose deaths per 100,000 deaths. That number jumped to 30 overdose deaths per 100,000 — more than quadrupling — by 2020.
"Death is inevitable, but premature death is not," Dr. Charles H. Hennekens of the FAU Schmidt College of Medicine said in a news release.
"Public health authorities should ... treat patients who have drug use disorders in the same way as patients who have a serious chronic disease to avoid premature death," Hennekens added.
The researchers point to a 1986 World Health Organization statement that pain treatment is a universal right. Following that, pain treatment guidelines for diseases like cancer were developed to include the use of opioids.
And soon thereafter, OxyContin — oxycodone hydrochloride, a highly addictive opioid — was approved for the management of pain, paving the way for widespread prescription and abuse of opioids.