Tag Archives: Center for Disease Control

Prescription Drug Overdoses More Deadly Than Car Crashes—U.S. in epidemic of prescription drug overdoses

A government health agency says the United States is in the grip of an epidemic of prescription drug overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more people die from such overdoses than from all illegal drugs combined. And accidental prescription drug deaths in the United States each year outnumber highway traffic fatalities. Recent celebrity deaths from apparent prescription drug overdoses have helped to put this public health problem into the spotlight.

The death of American singer and actress Whitney Houston has sparked discussion about accidental overdosing on prescription drugs.

Addiction Specialist Says It’s Easier to Withdraw Patients from Heroin than from Xanax

Between 2004 and 2008 the Centers for Disease Control reported an 89 percent increase in the number of emergency room visits nationwide related to the non-medical use of Xanax and other drugs in its class. According to drug site which reviews the FDA’s adverse events data base, people using Xanax reported more than 11,000 adverse events between 2004 and march of this year. They include 83 deaths, 107 completed suicides and 100 comas. “It’s so much easier to take people off heroin. I’d rather take 100 people off heroin than one person of Xanax because I know they’ll have a year of withdrawal,” says addiction specialist Dr. Jerry Callaway.

The United States of Adderall

Since 1996 the annual amount of Ritalin type drugs approved for production by the DEA multiplied 4000 times to 50 million kilograms, and for Adderall 10000 times to 26 million kilograms. In more common terms, 83,776 tons of legal speed were approved for production in 2010 equaling more than half a pound for every man, woman and child in America.

The U.S. is a signatory to a 1972 United Nations treaty monitoring the production and sale of potentially addicting substances. The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) based in Vienna, monitors the production of legal stimulants worldwide. INCB data shows that in 2009 the U.S., representing 4 percent of the world’s population, produced 88 percent of the world’s legal Ritalin type drugs. Canada uses a third per capita of prescription stimulants compared to the U.S. — Germany, one eighth, the U.K. one twelfth, Japan, one fiftieth.

ADHD’s Rapid Rise: 5 Theories [And One Answer]

by CCHR—THE WEEK posted a pretty good article called “ADHD’s Rapid Rise: 5 Theories” — pretty good because though several of their theories may play some part in why so many kids are diagnosed ADHD, they never quite nail the answer. So we did. Adding to their 5 points of various theories, we (CCHR) present you with point number 6: The actual answer.