Last year, the United States tackled a
deadly epidemic that made its way into the nation’s borders; however, the nation
looked past a preexisting threat that has killed more people in the past few
years than ever before in history. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention concluded
that the deadly drug, heroin, has killed more people recently than in previous
years; 43,000 people per year, to be exact. To give this number more meaning, the father of a young man who died of an
overdose found that this
number is fourteen times the number of people who died in the September 11th
attacks, and it means that in a twenty-month period, heroin will claim more
lives than the Vietnam War did in its entirety.
National figures show an increase in deaths by thirty-nine percent, and
over 2,000 more lives claimed in 2013 than in 2012. The drug has also claimed more lives than violent crimes and automobile accidents. Moreover, this is the fifteenth year in a row that the number of
heroin-related deaths has risen.
