How many people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2022?
Friday Current Event
Critical Analysis
Find answers to the following questions using the visual above, your big brain, the information provided and any links below:
How many people died of drug overdoses in 2022 in the U.S.?
How many people died of drug overdoses in 1980 in the U.S.?
Describe the change in drug overdoses in the U.S. between 1980 and 2022.
How many people died of fentanyl deaths in 2022?
Were there more overall American deaths in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined; or by fentanyl in 2022?
In terms of mortality, the current fentanyl crisis dwarfs any other drug crisis in American history. Over 1 million Americans have died in the current opioid epidemic. Do you believe that the opioid crisis gets enough attention from the media and the government?
The exact number of victims—particularly the number of those killed at the World Trade Center—is not definitively known. However, the official death toll on September 11th, after numerous revisions was set at 2,977 people. After 9/11 the United States mobilized to fight the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. spent untold billions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and restricted our own civil liberties in the War on Terror. How much bigger was the death toll from drug overdoes in 2022 than the total death toll on 9/11?
Richard Stephen Sackler is an American billionaire businessman and physician who was the chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, a former company best known as the developer of OxyContin, whose connection to the opioid epidemic in the United States was the subject of multiple lawsuits and fines, and that filed for bankruptcy in 2019. It has been claimed that Richard Sackler's Purdue is among ”the worst drug dealers in history” and the Sackler family have been described as the "most evil family in America". The company's downfall was the subject of the 2021 Hulu series Dopesick and the 2023 Netflix series Painkiller. The Sackler family is still estimated to be worth up to $15 billion, has denied all wrongdoing, and mo member of the Sackler family has ever been criminally charged in connection with the marketing of OxyContin, or any overdose deaths involving the drug. Why do you think Richard Sackler is a free man?
Most of the fentanyl sold in the United States is coming from Mexico, where drug cartels synthesize the drugs from precursor chemicals believed to come from factories in China. Some fentanyls are also shipped directly from China into the United States. Most fentanyl from Mexico is smuggled through Southern border legal ports of entry in cars and cargo trucks, and is typically not carried by migrants seeking humanitarian relief in the United States. Congress passed a law during the Trump administration imposing more regulations on prescription opioids and providing grants to states to help fight the epidemic. The Biden administration has pursued additional policies since taking office. Congress recently passed legislation making it easier for doctors to prescribe buprenorphine, a drug that helps people recover from opioid addiction. The administration has widened federal funding for so-called harm reduction approaches to addiction, like syringe exchanges and the distribution of drugs that can reverse overdoses. The Homeland Security and Justice departments have also increased enforcement operations aimed at the production and smuggling of fentanyl. The Biden administration recently imposed sanctions on 28 people and organizations, including a China-based network involved in producing and distributing fentanyl precursors. It also placed sanctions on members of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest Mexican traffickers of fentanyl to the United States. In September, Mexico extradited a leader of the Sinaloa cartel to the United States. What more do you think the U.S. government should do to fight the opioid epidemic?
In the 1970s, American life expectancy grew by about four months each year. By the 1980s, it was similar to life expectancy in other rich countries. Since then, other countries have continued to progress, with life spans increasing by more than two and a half months a year. As shown in the visual below*, the average life expectancy for Americans shortened by over seven months last year, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That decrease follows an already big decline of 1.8 years in 2020. As a result, the expected life span of someone born in the U.S. is now 76.4 years — the shortest it has been in nearly two decades. How much do you think the opioid epidemic is responsible for the declining U.S. life expectancy?
Learning Extension
Action Extension
Contact the White House and let President Joe Biden know what you think he should do about the American opioid crisis.
Or call the White House and tell the President I said hi at phone number:
1-202-456-1414 (Switchboard)
1-202-456-1111 (Comments)