‘Alarming’ drug overdose deaths in US hit record high of over 47,000 – CDC

https://www.rt.com/usa/326490-drug-overdoses-record-high/

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said drug overdoses hit record levels in 2014, with over 47,000 deaths – a nearly 7 percent increase in just one year. From 2000 to 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from drug poisoning.

The health agency said the US is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths, which have increased by 137 percent since 2000, including a 200 percent increase in deaths involving opioids, according to data published Friday in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“The increasing number of deaths from opioid overdose is alarming,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a press release on the report’s findings.