Bloomberg News (10/3, Cortez) reports that the number of Americans “dying from heroin overdoses doubled across 28 states in 2012 from 2010,” citing the CDC. The shift has mainly been due to ready access “and rising rates of opioid addiction,” the piece adds.
Bloomberg notes that the “unusual analysis” unveiled today by the CDC’s weekly bulletin came in the wake of the agency’s effort to find out “if reports from some states about spikes in heroin use and related deaths since 2010 were part of a larger nationwide trend.” In sheer numbers, there were 3,635 heroin deaths in 2012, compared with 1,779 two years earlier, the piece adds.
The Washington Times (10/3, Pace) highlights that death rates from heroin rose “in every age cohort, ethnic group (except American Indians/Alaskan Natives) and region of the country.” According to the paper, “men were nearly four times as likely to overdose from heroin as women, and 25- to 34-year-olds had the highest heroin-overdose death rate.” The piece notes that from 2010 to 2012, “the death rate from heroin overdose increased from 1.0 to 2.1 people per 100,000 in the population.”
Related Links:
— “Heroin Deaths Double in the U.S., Fueled by Access,” Michelle Fay Cortez, Bloomberg News, October 2, 2014.