As noted elsewhere, the increasing drug overdose death rate is a driving force in the decline of life expectancy in 2016. What hasn't been discussed is the extreme regional variation in the current epidemic.
The CDC has a nifty map/table that shows the overdose death rate by state for 1999, 2005, 2014,2015, 2016
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htmIf you go back to 1999 or 2005, you'll note that several Western states were near or at the top for od deaths. Go forward to 2014 and beyond and you'll note that the Western states are sinking to the bottom and states East of the Mississippi (especially along Appalachia) have skyrocketed.
The trend isn't just continuing but it's accelerating based on CDC tracking data
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htmAt this point Ohio, Pennsylvania and WV have an OD death rate 5 or 6 times higher than California or Texas. Massive increases along much of the East Coast down to Florida and over to Indiana are occurring, meanwhile the West Coast states all report declines.
It's my understanding that the variance is being created by the type of heroin that dominates different parts of the country. White powder heroin can apparently be cut with Fentanyl or Elephant tranquilizers, etc... that make it more potent and deadly. Meanwhile areas that black tar heroin dominate aren't experiencing the sharp increase.
How will the epidemic play out? Will it go national and overdose death soar over 100,000/year or will the epidemic burn through the most susceptible part of the population East of the Mississippi and start to drop soon? Or will government come up with a solution?
