The Coming " Stimulant Crisis? "

Earlier this month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), reported that from 2015-2016 deaths from cocaine and psychostimulants (such as methamphetamine, Ritalin, dextroamphetamine) increased 52.4 percent and 33.3 percent respectively. In 2017, the CDC reported a  total  overdose rate of 70,237, and cocaine was involved in 19.8 percent of those deaths while other psychostimulants were involved in 14.7 percent. Opioids, primarily synthetic (fentanyl and fentanyl analogs), were found in 72.7 percent of the cocaine deaths and 50.4 percent of the other psychostimulant deaths. The report mentioned that provisional 2018 data indicate deaths involving cocaine and other psychostimulants are continuing to increase.As I have written  here and here, deaths related to cocaine, methamphetamine, and other psychostimulants have been on the rise for several years now, despite legislation in 2005 that was supposed to address the problem, and recently fentanyl has replaced heroin as the drug with which they are combined to make a “speedball”—a mixture aimed at reducing the negative “come-down” effects after the rush from the stimulant.The most important sentence in the CDC report was this: “Increases in stimulant-involved deaths are part of a growing polysubstance landscape.” This should be viewed in the context of a recent study from the University of Pittsburgh that concluded:The U.S. drug overdose epidemi...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs