A few afternoons ago I caught a program in CNN by the Chief Medical Correspondent. Apparently every 19 minutes there is a death somewhere in the US by prescription drug overdose. This cause of death exceeded death by cancer. It is common for even a young and healthy man to take some pain medicine in excess of what the doctor prescribed and then take a few beers. He then went to sleep and breathing stopped.
Even though the drugs taken were legitimate, they were opiates in origin. When pain medicine was taken together with tranquilizer, drug interaction would double or triple the effect each drug has on slowing down breathing. What happened would then not be too different from heroine overdose. These people has no intention of killing themselves. They were just guilty of "stacking" drugs and maybe mixing drug with alcohol. For instance, they were used to taken two painkillers every four hourly to control back pain. Maybe when they were under stress, they also were used to taking one tranquilizer to go to sleep. Now supposing one evening they were in acute pain, they popped in four painkillers and then decided to take a tranquilizer to sleep early. Before the pills were swallowed, they had two beers before dinner. As they lie down, the cocktail were mixing in the blood stream. Respiration slowed. The heart pumped slower. Breathing became shallow. Gradually it stopped. It was painless. The person was either unconscious or asleep.
Looking back, I did notice that in most American households I visited about thirty years ago there were many bottles of drugs in each bathroom cabinet. The people who hosted me were generally healthy and vibrant. It therefore would not be too far fetch to believe that USA uses 80% of all prescription painkillers worldwide now.
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