I guess I always thought that - in theory - a person with the right access and inclination and pedantic verve, could compile such a database. In theory.
But I never thought anyone would actually do it!
Turns out the DEA is much more serious about their job than I thought they were...
But I never thought anyone would actually do it!
Turns out the DEA is much more serious about their job than I thought they were...
Worthy of note: this is data compiled by the DEA out of discovery motions launched by civil suits against the pharma manufacturers. They have data from 2006 to 2012... In 2019. They sure as shit didn't have it in 2006, and weren't looking for it.
The reason the opioid epidemic went from 'oxycontin is great!' to 'oh shit grandma and all her friends are junkies' is that every coroner in every county in every state in the nation has their own euphemism for "drug overdose" and it wasn't until public health officials in Washington, Oregon and Ohio went back and combed through five years of data in 2013 to manually confirm - via phone and email - whether or not this or that cadaver became a cadaver due to drugs that we suddenly had an opioid crisis on our hands.
And the reason this tilts heavily towards prescription drugs is it doesn't show the deaths of patients that were eventually cut off by their doctor or their insurance company or their copay or whatever and discovered that street heroin saves them about 80 cents on the dollar over oxycontin.