More than 150,000 Americans died from alcohol and drug-induced fatalities and suicide in 2017. Nearly a third — 47,173 — were suicides
The number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide in 2017 hit the highest level since the collection of federal mortality data started in 1999, according to an analysis by two public health nonprofits, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust. To reach their conclusion, the two groups parsed the latest available data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“There are two crises unfolding in America right now,” said Dr.
Most of the increase was concentrated in the preceding five years, when such deaths rose tenfold and the opioid epidemic became the leading cause of death for Americans under 55. Though doctors and drug companies have been taking steps to control opioid addictions, Auerbach said, patients who are addicted to prescription opioids often shift to synthetic ones, like fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin. Fentanyl has also snaked its way into other drugs like cocaine, Xanax and MDMA, widening the epidemic.Guns, which remain plentiful and accessible, were used in nearly half of the nation’s 47,173 suicides in 2017, the analysis showed.
While state legislatures passed 69 gun control measures in 2018, the measures are not reflected in this data, which were collected before 2018.There were 13,075 such deaths in 2017. Miller and Auerbach attributed this increase to copycat suicides.
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