Thread by @DrDavid_IDEM

The trend for drug #overdose/poisoning deaths keep going ⬆️⬆️⬆️ as they count the data. For the 12 months ending in April 2021, the US had a record 100,000+ overdose deaths. *Thread/RANT* 🧵😡😤🗣

google.com/amp/s/www.nyti…

Not to take attention away from people with addiction, but the media should also be using these opportunities to spread awareness about other at-risk groups, such as pain patients and ppl buying counterfeit pills for recreational use. They contribute to the death toll too.

Any media story on the drug epidemic should be educating ppl about HOW we got to 100k deaths - sure illicit fentanyl is a huge factor, but what about the role drug policies of underprescribing (safe) Rx opioids played in driving pain patients to seek (unsafe) illicit opioids???

What about all the teenagers and young adults accidentally overdosing because the Xanax pills they bought were actually some mixture of illicit synthetic opioids?

Credit to anyone writing about the drug epidemic but I feel there’s an opportunity to change public perception of the ppl that overdose. These ppl aren’t “junkies”. They are ppl with mental health issues, kids that wanted to party, ppl in chronic pain that are denied Rx opioids..

Too many ignorant ppl group those that overdose into one group and say sh*t like “they don’t care about 100k deaths because those ppl were ‘addicts’ and a lost cause.” Governments and the media need to play a bigger role in destigmatizing substance use.

There are just waaay too many issues that led to 100k drug overdose deaths in 12 months… multiple solutions to combat the drug epidemic on multiple fronts are necessary to bring numbers down.

1. Harm reduction - fentanyl test strips to test the supply before using it, carrying naloxone/Narcan, safe supply clinics for health care pros to administer a safe supply of drugs to users, surveillance of illicit drug supplies (I blogged about this idemsystems.com/illicit-drug-s…)

2. Better access to addiction treatment and mental health counseling - addiction stems from a mental health and a pill doesn’t magically make someone an addict. Access to buprenorphine or suboxone (especially for the uninsured and underserved groups) treatments are critical.

3. Reversing drug policies that reduced Rx opioids to #ChronicPain patients - The existing drug policies made dr.’s afraid to prescribe opioids because they could get arrested. Reversing them would prevent patients from having seek illicit drugs to replace their safe Rx supply.

4. Drug interdiction - while many substances are controlled/prohibited, it drives the black market to push deadlier supplies to their customer. #LawEnforcement are responsible for keeping these supplies out of communities but their current tech is not effective enough to curb ODs

5. More effective early drug education - many of us were taught to “just say no” and we see where that got us (100k deaths in a year). Let’s get public health experts and drug experts to develop a standard curriculum for early drug education to be adopted by public schools.

I’m sure there are more things that need to change in order to curb the drug epidemic but I’ll end my rant here. 🥵

Tweet your local public officials and congresspeople to educate them about the drug epidemic! I learned more by engaging on Twitter so maybe they can too.