AN INTERESTING GRAPHIC HAS BEEN CREATED TO SHOW WHICH DRUGS, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL, ARE THE ACTUAL CAUSE OF DEATH IN AMERICA

 

The CDC has compiled an interesting and clear graphic of the cause of death by drug, illicit or not, in America. 

In 2010, the last year of the graphic, more than 80,000 deaths occurred from alcohol or drug intake.  

However, as this chart makes clear, the cause of death has shifted overwhelmingly from conventional street drugs, to pharmaceutical ones.

Although the classifications contain sub-categories, as for example caffeine and MDMA are clumped together as psychostimulants, it is obvious where human preference has shifted. 

Unfortunately the rate of overdoses in the US has more than doubled in the eleven years tallied in the chart.  And half are from pharmaceutical agents.  Their names by know are known: Vicodin, OxyContin and other opioids. 

Marijuan and LSD, once the scourge of anti drug activists, have all but disappeared from the chart, once more reiterating the need for drug enforcement reform.

The charts do not tally people who are in the US illegally. It also does not include US citizens living abroad.

Source : POP Science 4.26.13