Painkillers Kill More Than Heroin and Cocaine Combined...

Painkillers Kill More Than Heroin and Cocaine Combined

Over 12 million on painkillers without a real medical reason

By Anthony Gucciardi

Yes, prescription painkillers do in fact take more lives per year than two of the hardest illegal drugs in the nation — surpassing both heroin and cocaine in their total related deaths. It all has to do with how these prescription pharmaceuticals work in the brain, and how many individuals around the country are easily acquiring them to feed their deadly habits.

Because after all, who said legal drugs were all that different from illegal drugs in many cases?

rescription painkillers are known to ‘numb’ the pain, which is achieved by their ability to bind to brain receptors and decrease your body’s ability to process pain signals. As a result, it’s easy to enter into this ‘feel good’ state to the point of serious addiction and even physical dependence. Think similarly to a heroin user who needs to inject the drug multiple times a day in order to reach the ‘high’ that they have become accustomed to.

But let’s look beyond the basic science of how painkillers work and into the largest study on the issue of painkiller deaths, which was recently conducted by McGill University in Canada. An impressing topic that truly does deserve thorough research, researchers from the team tracked the total death stats from both heroin and cocaine, and then compared them to the painkiller death figures that they collected from numerous top sources. Published in the American Journal of Public Health, some key findings include:

The United States and Canada are number one and two respectively per capita when it comes to opioid (painkiller) consumption.

In just 2010, there were over 16,000 deaths resulting from painkiller use within the United States.

Individuals addicted to and abusing painkillers often take large doses to feel a more ‘euphoric effect.’

Such large doses can stop breathing, resulting in death.

So how is this still going on? Surely doctors must be taking precautions?

Read the rest here:
http://naturalsociety.com/painkillers-kill-more-than-heroin-and-cocaine-combined/