Effective early drug education is necessary to curb drug #overdose deaths. And no, I don’t mean DARE. I taught a univ. freshman seminar class and they go through a lesson on “substance abuse” and those 18 yr olds didn’t know sh*t about drugs. #InternationalOverdoseAwarenessDay
If that’s the representation of our teenage and young adults in the US, then we need to do more in middle school & high school to educate them about drugs, responsible medical use, and the risks of irresponsible or recreational drug use. Educate them rather than scare them str8.
We can’t look at the drug epidemic as a problem that will be solved overnight, or next year, or even in 5 years. We must invest more in educating the younger generations with basic information about drugs.
I read news about kids buying “Xanax” pills online and college students buying “Adderall” from classmates. These days, suppliers are putting fentanyl and meth, respectively, in those pills. Kids #overdose because they have no clue that it isn’t Xanax or Adderall.
It doesn’t help to just tell kids “drugs are bad” and expect them to just never try drugs. Explain to them legitimate reasons ppl take opioids, benzos, or smoke weed. Explain to them why buying drugs from an unreliable source is unsafe. Actually EDUCATE them.
Obviously many adults need the education too to curb drug #overdose deaths, but there’s no public free platform that exists that requires them to sit in class for 8 hours a day for most of the year… it’s not too late for the kids though. #OverdoseAwarenessDay
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I’ll cap #OverdoseAwarenessDay with this. Data show there was no correlation between Rx opioid dispensing and the drug overdose death rate in 38 states & D.C (represented by the dots) in 2018. The closer R-squared (R^2) is to 1, the stronger the correlation. Here R^2 is 0.00002.
0.00002 is VERY VERY far from 1, indicating that the Rx opioid dispensing rate from state to state had no effect on drug overdose numbers.
Explanation of the data: In simple linear regression, R-squared is known as the correlation coefficient, on a scale of 0-1, 1 being a perfect linear correlation and 0 being no correlation.
To compare the 3 south Florida counties’ drug #overdose data, each of them had an 83%+ increase of OD deaths from 2015 to 2016 📈. Then in 2018, all 3 saw a drop in their drug OD death count 📉.
My educated guess: the positive overdose death spikes in 2015 may be attributed to the rise of illicit fentanyl in the US. I’m not too sure about the negative spike in 2018. Keep in mind that 2018 was the ONLY year of nationwide #overdose death decline since 1999.
Maybe the decrease was due to programs such as @HealthyFla HEROS that distributed free naloxone/Narcan to #FirstResponders. But of course, the overdose death count jumped back up in 2019.
My next few posts will be about South #Florida, the most populated region in my state. Miami-Dade Co. also had a large surge in drug #overdose deaths in 2016 and has remained above 200 per year ever since.
This 135 drug #overdose death surge is within the same timing as the 248 death surge in the Jacksonville Florida area (shown in my last tweet) from 2015 to 2016. This surge also correlates to the rise of illicit fentanyl overdose spikes in the US.
The data from Miami-Dade is actually mind boggling. This county is the most populated in #Florida but has managed to maintain one of the lowest overdose deaths per 100k ppl in the state over the years.
It’s #InternationalOverdoseAwarenessDay. In America, the drug epidemic does not get enough attention from the media and our many public officials. Many ppl aren’t even aware of the fact that ~100k ppl died last year due to drug overdoses.
Even before #COVID19 came along and numbed us from every day death tolls, 200 ppl were dying each day from drug use in the US. Now that number is 250 ppl dying per day from drug overdoses. The first step to a solution is to recognize that there is a problem.
Today in honor of #OverdoseAwarenessDay , I’ll be posting a bunch of information about drug overdoses. Since I am from Florida, a lot of my data will be from Florida, but the sentiment of this huge problem applies to almost every large metro area in the US.
The US drug overdose death count in 1999 was 16,849. This number has increased almost every year since then (2018 was the only decline) and is estimated to exceed 93,000 overdose deaths in 2020.
Here’s a @CDCgov source showing drug overdose deaths from 1999-2017.
This other data set from the @CDCgov shows the contributors. Since the mid-2010’s, a large % of drug overdose deaths was caused by fentanyl. Meth, cocaine, Rx opioids & benzos have contributed too.
👉🏾Exclusively limiting Rx opioid distribution has failed to solve the epidemic.
“In recent years, we have seen synthetic opioids, such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl, drive many overdose deaths with cocaine- and methamphetamine-related deaths also increasing at alarming rates.”
“As a Nation, we need a strong response to America’s overdose epidemic and an investment in prevention, #harmreduction, treatment and recovery services, as well as strategies to reduce the supply of illicit drugs.”
“… by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 29 through September 4, 2021, as Overdose Awareness Week.”