Jackson Jambalaya

They are really on the ball! These figures are for 2017 (right at 2 years ago). This gives us some idea how efficiently our Guvment is being run.

So what?

Do we have to always hold peoples hands?

They took the drugs! Let them die shaking and vomiting.

Only libtards would even take the time to read this liberal BS.

Where are all the real americans?

Bunch of socialist libtardians.

That's a great map of Alabama and Georgia... Maybe we can get a map of MS on the post too?

@8:14 are you for real? Are those actual thoughts that came from your brain?

The map really tells the story. All those opioids have made the state look like Alabama.

From the link. “ The data in the maps show the geographic distribution in the United States, at both state and county levels, of retail opioid prescriptions dispensed per 100 persons per year from 2006–2017.”

Wow! Looks like we got our money's worth from the MBN diversion program...NOT! This problem was revealed several years ago (~2013-14 if I recall correctly) following an analysis of PMP data. When we showed it to Fisher he did nothing, and all Dowdy did was call folks sissies. The state of drug enforcement in Mississippi is a joke.

Anyone who enjoys history should research the Opium Wars in China.

Learn how the British Empire robbed the Imperial Chinese treasury of gold and silver by addicting the royal court and majority of citizens to Indian produced opium.

To this day, never forgetting that humiliation, narcotic smuggling carries a death sentence in the People's Republic of China. Chinese traditional medicine seeks alternatives for pain relief that do not require narcotics.

So, how will future historians look back on the last days of American Inperialism?

8:49 - I agree that 8:14's comments may seem somewhat harsh, but I think you get the idea. So many problems in our society are self induced. I find it difficult in many circumstances to feel sympathy for the so called victim. Yes, it is tragic. Yes, the touches many more lives than the addict. But like I said, I'll save the vast majority of my sympathy for those who have tough issues through no fault of their own.

I'm amused by the apparent disdain for facts from the commenters who find that these facts don't comport with their confirmation biases. White people are driving this huge nationwide increase in opioid abuse.That's why places like West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky lead the US in such abuse. The good news is that it looks like Mississippi is making real progress.

Bill Dees,

Teva Pharmaceuticals just settled a multi illion dollar lawsuit for their part in fueling the opioid epidemic. They are based in Israel, not West Virginia or Kentucky.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/teva-shares-surge-after-announcing-global-opioid-settlement.html

Grenada is listed as a hotspot, but adjacent Carroll, redneck heaven, is listed at .6. Puhleeeeeze. .6!?!??! Hell, you'd think it was all observant Mormons and not methheads.

Same with adjacent Yalobusha. But where are the doctors and hospitals? Grenada County. Carroll hardly has a few clinics. Food deserts are known. Medical deserts are a bigger issue, but who cares about that?

For example, Madison has 834 folks per PC Doc. Carroll has 5,121 people per doc. That matters greatly. Lamar is 33, but Forrest is 183. Wonder why. Says no one with an education.

Apples and oranges except for total scrips. The places where prescriptions are WRITTEN are not where the patients live. It's also not where they are consumed.

As KF notes, the good (and only real) news is a steady downward trend.

Nope. Not just whitey, hero.

"What the data says: Opioids are not just about white people

Drug addiction has devastated black communities for decades, and in recent years, the national opioid overdose death rate has been increasing more quickly among Black populations than among white ones.

From 2016-2017, the mortality rate among Black, non-Hispanic individuals rose by 25 percent, compared to the 11 percent increase among white, non-Hispanic individuals.

The increase among Latino people just outpaced the rate for white people at 11.5 percent, emphasizing the crisis is not limited to white populations.

At the state level, 2017 opioid overdose death rates were actually higher for Black, non-Hispanic individuals than for white individuals in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington, West Virginia (often called the “epicenter” of the opioid crisis), Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

In Washington state, the drug and opioid-involved overdose death rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives also far surpasses that of White individuals.

Cities like Chicago are also seeing this trend. Black individuals in Chicago make up about a third of the population but almost half of the opioid-related deaths.

Once again, the ignorance in the comments here leaves me astounded. No one chooses to become an addict. It is a disease, not a lack of self-control. With opioids, most people who became addicted to them took their first dose legally. Get a grip people, or better yet, just leave a country and got to North Korea where addicts are put to death.

the opioid crisis is a joke. Very few if any people overdose on prescription codeine. However mixed with alcohol or Xanax or other drugs and it’s deadly. All drug autopsies show multiple drugs in the persons system. So blaming opioids is crazy except there is a lot of money to be had from the manufacturers. The states and trial lawyers need a new tobacco settlement and this is a goldmine.

People, it isn't that hard to find the names of the people and corporations responsible for the opioid epidemic.

Perdue Pharma created and marketed OxyContin in 1995. That is a fact.

11:05 posted a link to the settlement made by Teva and Perdue Pharma. They are the corporate drug pushers responsible for the Opioid Epidemic.

Don't be distracted by the divide and conquer race baiting tactics used to pit one against another. Rather, focus your attention on those who socially engineer us and rob of us of our wealth as well as our humanity.

Don't let the USA be Weimar 2020.

No one chooses to become an addict. It is a disease, not a lack of self-control.

Such weasel words created by an industry to solve the problem they created.

The is what happens when you give drug companies and doctors the freedums they want to maximize profits!

Mission Accomplished!

When can we get back to giving the paint industry the freedum to sell lead paint to use in and on houses?

PS- Using the drug companies PACS and the drug company executives and owners dirty drug money to get the legislative branches to pimp and hussle for the drug industry? That's what some would a win win!

Signed- Citizens United

11:22 AM has been shooting up the bleeding heart kool-aide, and making up "facts" that fit his confirmation bias.

Can you say bovine scatology? I know you can.

11:12am wrote, "Apples and oranges except for total scrips. The places where prescriptions are WRITTEN are not where the patients live. It's also not where they are consumed.

As KF notes, the good (and only real) news is a steady downward trend."

That seems both a reasonable and persuasive point. It would be interesting to see if the prescriptions for fairly widely-prescribed but (as far as I am aware) "un-abused" drugs (i.e., no one wants to take them for, er "off label" reasons and they have little or no "street value" - maybe diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure meds???) show similar county numbers. I do not know if numbers are readily available for those types of drugs or where they might be found - anyone?

One thing that seems to support the fewer prescribers, fewer prescriptions argument is the Hancock, Harrison and Jackson County numbers. The populations (the people themselves, not the numbers) of those counties are fairly similar, yet Harrison shows about 1/3 more prescriptions. I'd bet big that a significant number of the prescriptions of all drugs, whether opioids, Crestor, or jock itch cream, written in Harrison County are for Hancock or Jackson County residents to be taken in those counties, but readily admit I do not know that to be a fact.

The American Medical Association has recognized addiction as a disease since the early 1960s. Oh, wait. I guess you know more than doctors and the AMA know, right? I don't even have to comment further 2:28 PM. Your ignorant post make my case for me.

@2:57
Two military bases are located in Harrison county. Soldiers pop a lot of pills.

Is it possible to identify the doctors writing the prescriptions?

Check the campaign finance reports. Big Pharma up and down every one of them. Gotta keep medical pot out of the state so we can keep writing these scripts!

So 11:32 and 2:59 when it comes to being a drug addict, alcoholic, or so obese as to need a scooter to get around, it's everyone's fault that they became that way?

Jesus, please don't breed, because we have enough of "the don't blame" wussies to pander to, lest someone says something outsider their "safe place" and hurts their pitiful little feelings.

This is what happens when you give everyone on the last place soccer team a trophy for being part of the worst team. The two statements shows everyone that you're just a crybaby.

What a classic emotional headline. I've personally had six or seven hydrocodone prescriptions in a 12 month period. Orthopedic surgery followed by a prescription that day, another at followup and another 45 days later and another at the next followup. Then a lumbar issue with related prescriptions.

This isn't an accurate depiction.

Some people can drink vast quantities of alcohol for a long time. Yet, if sufficiently motivated, they can be de-toxed from physical dependency, leave it behind, and never look back. These people are not alcoholics. The alcoholic will go back to it, regardless of the consequences, without a recovery program of some sort. I suspect the same is true of drug abusers and addicts.

Personally, I doubt society has a higher percentage of alcoholics and addicts now than we did 50 years ago. I suspect the real difference is increased availability of drug combinations and types of drugs that make it much easier to accidentally over-dose.

I understand the leftist mind now. The crackhead that murdered my elderly mother for the church tithe in her purse was just sick and couldn't get proper treatment due to institutional white supremacy. Right. I get it.

Those stats are a deceiving. I had cervical spine surgery I was given 1 prescription before the surgery would be done due to the pain in neck back and arm. 1 prescription for immediate post surgical pain, and 1 prescription at my follow up for as needed pain where in neck where surgery was performed. That’s 3 scripts for me (1) but all were for legit reasons determined by a neurosurgeon. First script was for 20 pill, 2nd script was for 40 pill (immediate post surgery) and 3rd was for 20 pills for as needed post surgery.

"....determined by a neurosurgeon." Soooo, what did people do 50 years ago? They had a longer recovery, and more discomfort, but know exposure to the good stuff that tempts addiction.