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Opioid Overdoses: Mass Casualty Zones In America

WAMU 88.5
Published June 20, 2017 at 9:06 AM CDT
Used syringes at a needle exchange clinic in St. Johnsbury, Vt., where users can pick up new syringes and other clean items for those dependent on heroin. Heroin and other opiates have begun to devastate many communities in the Northeast and Midwest, leading to a surge in fatal overdoses in a number of states. As prescription painkillers, such as the synthetic opiate OxyContin, become increasingly expensive and regulated, more Americans are turning to heroin to fight pain or to get high.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Used syringes at a needle exchange clinic in St. Johnsbury, Vt., where users can pick up new syringes and other clean items for those dependent on heroin. Heroin and other opiates have begun to devastate many communities in the Northeast and Midwest, leading to a surge in fatal overdoses in a number of states. As prescription painkillers, such as the synthetic opiate OxyContin, become increasingly expensive and regulated, more Americans are turning to heroin to fight pain or to get high.

Last year alone, more Americans died from a drug overdose than were lost fighting the war in Vietnam.

Opioids, including pain medicines, are turning some cities into mass casualty zones.

President Trump promised to “dramatically expand access to treatment.”

So what’s been done? And what should we do?

GUESTS

Lenny Bernstein, Health and medicine reporter, The Washington Post

Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner; emergency physician

Phil Plummer, Sheriff, Montgomery County, Ohio

For more, visit http://the1a.org.

© 2017 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio.

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