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Are You Aware? A Convergence of Crises — The Opioid Epidemic
This is part V in our “Rural America” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 841,000 people in the U.S. have died of drug overdose since 1999. Drugs are the leading cause of death from injury in the U.S., by a significant margin. In 2019, 29% of injury-related deaths were caused by drug poisoning. The next closest causes of death by injury were falls, firearms, and motor vehicle-related deaths, at around 15-16% each. That same year, about 70% of all drug overdose deaths were caused by opioids. Opioids, opiates, and opiums — what are they? An opiate is a derivative of the…