Opioids are the primary reason more Americans die each year from drug overdoses than car accidents. An August 2017 report from a Presidential Commission described the death toll from the opioid crisis as “September 11th every three weeks.” (Fischetti, 2017)

Oxycontin and other opioid drugs impair respiration. (Hanson et al., 2004) During an overdose, a person essentially suffocates to death, unable to move their lungs, as if something heavy were sitting on their chest.

Many overdose deaths are caused when people combine an opioid with a sedative like alcohol, an antihistamine like promethazine, or a benzodiazepine like Xanax or klonopin.

Mixing more powerful opioids like fentanyl or carfentanil into other drugs is also accelerating opioid deaths. These drugs are so potent that minute amounts can kill a person. Users and dealers will try to blend fentanyl with other substances to make it safer, but inevitably, purer granules will always poke through, and that’s what’s killing many addicts. Just like mixing a batch of cookies, there will always be areas where the drug doesn’t get mixed in as well, and so 99 addicts can get their high without a problem, but the 100th gets that section of purity and overdoses. It’s like playing a game of Russian roulette with every hit taken, and since users are getting high around the clock to feed their addiction and stave off withdrawal, it makes for a dangerous situation.

The overdose drug naloxone can revive patients if caught in time, but unless a person uses this scare to address their addiction, it’s no panacea. Many addicts are overdosing and being revived half a dozen times or more, and the more you use naloxone, the more tolerance you build for it and the less dramatic its effects. Not surprisingly, a joint study by an emergency physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that 1 in 10 patients who initially survived an opioid overdose after being revived with naloxone died of another overdose within a year. (Kamp, 2017)