What is the Third Wave of America’s Opioid Epidemic?
A report, issued by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has highlighted what has been claimed to be the start of the ‘third wave’ of the US’s national opioid epidemic. This wave has been triggered by the increasing use of fentanyl as an illegal opioid to replace prescribed opioid-based painkillers.
The first wave of the opioid-epidemic was the over-prescription of legal pain medications such as OxyContin. The second was the move of people who had become addicted to their pain medication to heroin. The increasing surge of fentanyl – which is one of the most powerful and most deadly opioids ever manufactured – has triggered a new wave of this epidemic, and this could end up being the deadliest of all three.
Fentanyl is One of the Deadliest Opioids Ever Manufactured
Fentanyl – if misused – can shut down a person’s breathing in less than thirty seconds. It is relatively cheap to manufacture and began to enter the illegal opioids market in 2013. Its use has increased significantly since then, and fatal overdoses when using fentanyl have increased at an unprecedented rate.
In 2011 only one death in every 200,000 in the United States (all fatalities, not just via opioid overdoses) could be attributed to fentanyl. By 2016 this had risen to one death per 17,000.
Fentanyl is becoming an increasing problem as illegal narcotic manufacturers are using it as a ‘bulking agent’ when making other opioid-based narcotics. Someone using fentanyl may not even be aware that they are using it. Despite being fifty times more potent than heroin, the highs induced by the drug do not last very long when compared to other opioids. This leads to users using too much of the drug or using it too frequently, leading to possible overdoses.
Current Efforts to Curb Opioid Overdoses Seem to Have Little Effect
The United States is already trying to find a way of easing the opioid epidemic, such as increasing the availability of naloxone which is a drug that can be used to reverse an opioid overdose, but such is the increasing availability of fentanyl it is almost like fighting a losing battle. Over 40,000 people each year in the US die due to an opioid-related overdose.
If your life is being affected by opioids, and you would like to claim your life back, then we here at Advanced Rapid Detox can help. We’ll give you the aid you need to rid your body of opioids in as little as three days through our highly effective rapid opiate detox process. Please call us at (800) 603-1813 or use the online contact form available on our website.
