The misuse of the opioid drug took a spike in the year 2018 which resulted in the death of thousands of people in the U.S. The opioid drug first came out as a prescribed drug with the purpose to treat pain, but due to its overdosage, people somehow managed to get addicted to it which fired back in the most unsettling way possible. As a result, an opioid crisis surged abruptly in the U.S making it the first country to reach 314.5 deaths per million.
Request for funding programs to combat drug misuse
As per these reports, the use of opioids, either pharmaceutical or synthesized, picked up pace in the subsequent years, adding a thousand more deaths to the total deaths. To fight this battle against this crisis, million-dollar funding has been set into motion for better take at prevention.
What could cause a fatal opioid overdose
Another opioid that grabbed the attention of people is carfentanil which becomes completely indistinguishable once mixed with heroin. Similarly, the use of fentanyl, a synthetic product, caused relatively more damage to human lives because of its high potency but not higher than the carfentanil as it still tops the list. Another drug called tramadol also started making rounds because of its increased efficiency to treat pain, and by the time its doses were declared lethal, many lives were already lost.
Infographic by: Visualcapitalist.com