Heroin use and overdose deaths are rising fast in the United States, particularly among whites and women, US health authorities said Tuesday. More than 8,200 people died from a heroin-involved overdose in 2013, nearly twice the number of deaths seen just two years earlier, according to the Vital Signs report issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Heroin use has doubled among women since 2002, reaching 1.6 women per 1,000 people by 2013. Heroin use rose 50 percent among men in the same period, to a rate of 3.6 users per 1,000 nation-wide in 2013. About 500,000 people are currently addicted to heroin in the United States, CDC chief Tom Frieden told reporters.
"Heroin use is increasing rapidly across nearly all demographic groups, and with that increase, we are seeing a dramatic rise in deaths," he said. "Around one in 50 people who are addicted to heroin may die of it in each year of their addiction," Frieden added. "That is a remarkably high proportion, and a reflection of how dangerous it is to have a heroin addiction, to have heroin supply from sources where purity may change rapidly, and to be using it by an intravenous route."
The CDC report was based on an analysis of data from the 2002-2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, comparing trends among demographic and substance-using groups. Two key reasons for the mounting toll from heroin include an increasing number of people addicted to prescription painkillers, which contain the same active ingredients as heroin, and the low cost of readily-available the street drug, said Frieden. Heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled over the decade studied.