Drug Abuse Becomes The Leading Cause Of Death Among The Homeless
Just before the dawn of the new millennium, AIDS was the leading cause of death among homeless people. The 1990s were largely the decade of AIDS, when a generation of Americans grew up threatened by the specter of HIV and AIDS, and this threat was fully realized among the homeless population. Homeless people experience most of the same types of health problems as the rest of the general population, but due to the fact that they generally lack proper medical care and an extended family and social network of support, these problems are greatly magnified in their effects.
This was true of AIDS, which 15 years ago was the cause of 18 percent of deaths among homeless people. At that time, only 6 percent of deaths were the result of drug overdose, and the primary concerns regarding drug abuse among the homeless at that time had to do with them drinking mouthwash and similar attempts to get drunk or high. Recently, this situation has made a nearly perfect reversal: in the period between 2003 and 2008, only 6 percent of homeless people died from AIDS, while drug overdose now accounts for 17 percent of deaths.
This alarming development is the subject of a recent publication from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers in Boston tracked the health and activity of 28,033 homeless adults over a period of 5 years. They found that after drug overdose, the leading causes of death among homeless people were cancer and heart disease, with AIDS not even making it into the top three causes of mortality. The widespread proliferation of prescription drugs accounts for a large part of the explosion of drug overdose deaths. At the same time that the numbers of deaths due to overdose has nearly tripled among homeless people, there has been an almost identical increase in the rate at which strong painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin are sold; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that painkiller prescriptions are up 300 percent since 1999. The general population has suffered from an astonishing increase in the rates of prescription painkiller abuse to the point where 12 million Americans admitted to using painkillers non-medically in 2010 alone.
Painkillers are now second only to marijuana for the rates of abuse. It is not only the middle- and upper-class population that has access to painkillers — Oxycontin is so widely popular among the urban poor and people living in rural areas that it has acquired the street name of Hillbilly Heroin.
Where Do Homeless People Get Painkillers?
While homeless people generally do not have access to comprehensive medical care, many are able to take advantage of free clinics and other programs which provide treatment and care. This is one source where they are able to obtain pain medications. As mentioned above, cancer is widespread among homeless people, and painkillers are often prescribed as a way to alleviate the pain felt by many cancer patients. Arthritis and other painful conditions are also common among the homeless, and doctors have become increasingly willing to write prescriptions for opiate painkillers for these ailments.
Given that such drugs are essentially similar to heroin — which itself is derived from opium — the picture which presents itself is one of a large percentage of homeless people dying every year as a result of overdosing on drugs which they did not obtain from a drug dealer on the streets, but from their own medical doctors. They are not alone, either: the CDC reports that an average of 15,000 people from all walks of life now die every year due to painkiller overdose, describing the situation as a deadly epidemic which is now sweeping across the nation.
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