Trump is going after China because they cause our drug problem or is it Mexico?
Perhaps he should look closer to home at Big Pharma.
Opiods used to be an inner city problem largely with heroin until 10 to 15 years ago.
Over the past 15 years, the rate of opioid pain reliever (OPR) use in the United States has soared. From 1999 to 2011, consumption of hydrocodone more than doubled and consumption of oxycodone increased by nearly 500%. During the same time frame, the OPR-related overdose death rate nearly quadrupled. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the unprecedented increase in OPR consumption has led to the “worst drug overdose epidemic in [US] history”. Given the magnitude of the problem, in 2014 the CDC added opioid overdose prevention to its list of top five public health challenges.
Another important feature of the opioid addiction epidemic is the relationship between OPR use and heroin use. According to the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH),
4 out of 5 current heroin users report that their opioid use began with OPRs. Many of these individuals appear to be switching to heroin after becoming addicted to OPRs because heroin is less expensive on the black market. For example, in a recent sample of opioid-addicted individuals who switched from OPRs to heroin, 94% reported doing so because OPRs “were far more expensive and harder to obtain”
Here is the whole report to read and yes, it's not new info
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10...-031914-122957
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