Heroin Use Increased Five-Fold Over Past Decade, Researchers Say.

Reuters (3/29, Reaney) reports that “heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold” over the past 10 years, while heroin addiction “has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes and little education,” researchers say. They found “no differences in heroin use or addiction among the major regions of the country.” Their findings were published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

CNN (3/29, Kounang) reports that “more people die from drug overdoses than from guns or car accidents.” Now, more people die of drug overdoses than died from AIDS during the “peak” of the epidemic in 1995.

TIME (3/29, Sifferlin) reports that heroin use increased among white Americans “increased from 0.34% in the earlier years to 1.90% in the later years,” compared to “0.32% in 2001-2002 and 1.05% in 2012-2013” among non-whites.

Related Links:

— “Heroin use, addiction up sharply among U.S. whites: study,” Patricia Reaney, Reuters, March 29, 2017.

Posted in In The News.