Isolation and fear led to an unprecedented 28.5% increase
During the pandemic divorces, domestic violence and alcohol consumption soared, but none of these evils was as deadly as drug and drug abuse, which for the first time in history left more than 100,000 dead in the United States. An unprecedented 28.5% increase over the previous year.
Gripped by fear, confined to their homes and isolated from family and friends, chronic pain became strong in the lives of many. Some were already hooked on opiates that doctors prescribed for them at the time. Synthetic opioids were responsible for 64% of all drug overdoses, especially fentanyl, more potent than morphine and more lethal than any other drug.
The origin of addiction is to be found in the abuse of prescriptions issued for years by doctors bribed by pharmaceutical companies. Those who trusted them one day found themselves hooked on drugs without which their life was hell, tortured by the body and anxiety.
Between 2009 and 2013, the peak of the silent epidemic, eight out of ten prescriptions were for synthetic opiates, more than 255 million prescriptions in 2012. Pharmaceuticals found that the drug, intended for terminally ill cancer patients, had an unprofitable ceiling in this group, but they could find clients for life if they convinced doctors to prescribe it for any acute pain.
Antidote distribution
At first they were mothers, athletes and citizens recovering from an operation, a fall or a break, but before long they were no longer different from any heroin addict. They lied, stole, and even deliberately broke their arms to get them to re-prescribe the medicine that would restore their peace. That’s why cities like New York made it easy to deliver methadone to heroin addicts at home during the worst months of the pandemic, but those who were hiding their addiction were not on the public radar.
The overdose death of these addicts could have been prevented with the distribution of naloxone, an antidote that would have kept them alive. “It is very sad that people die for not having it at hand,” lamented the director of the national drug control office, Rahul Gupta. The Joe Biden government has asked Congress for eleven million dollars in the 2022 budget for preventive treatments, rehabilitation and, above all, to distribute antidotes among the entire hooked population, which will mean exposing their secret.
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