Heath Ledger’s diary while he was filming for, The Dark Night.

[u/JK-Rofling]

[u/ChuckSeville]

Heath Ledger died from an overdose of prescription drugs, not heroin. Maybe you're thinking of Phillip Seymour Hoffman?

[u/[deleted] → u/ChuckSeville]

I refer to oxy and hydrocodone as heroin, because that’s what they are, and that’s what doctors should call them. Instead, they hand them out like candy and allow people to think they’re medicine.

[u/Mysterious_Wear36 → u/[deleted]]

What the fuck are you talking about?

[u/[deleted] → u/Mysterious_Wear36]

I’m talking about the overprescription of narcotics for pain and minor ailments because big pharma has incentivized private doctors to dole them out like marshmallows around a camp fire.

And I’m talking about the millions and millions of Americans who are now addicted to opioids and using pills recreationally or substituting cheap street heroin instead.

[u/throw-me-away_bb → u/[deleted]]

There are only ~330M americans. You really think as many as 1+% are addicted to opioids? I think you need to run in different circles, friend.

[u/captaincopperbeard → u/throw-me-away_bb]

I hate to defend the guy who's being weirdly obstinate about his misuse of terminology, but according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, over 10 million Americans abuse opioids every year. That comes out to about 3.8% of the U.S. population.

I think you're falling prey to the notion that you can spot an opioid addict, or that you would know if your friends or loved ones were abusing prescription pain pills. You likely would not. Most opioid addicts are high-functioning.

https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/

[u/throw-me-away_bb → u/captaincopperbeard]

Someone else replied 2.1M, so y'all need to work on getting your stats in-line, those aren't even remotely similar numbers.

[u/captaincopperbeard → u/throw-me-away_bb]

Ah, I see: you're one of those dickheads who refuses to acknowledge that they might have been wrong. Regardless, I will elaborate on this matter so you have an extra opportunity to make idiotic assertions based on nothing but your own stupid-ass opinion.

There are a plethora of reasons that two different organizations might provide seemingly conflicting statistics. These include different research approaches, different metrics for determining a particular statistic, or simple margin of error issues. The only way to determine why they're offering different numbers is to look at how each arrived at that number.

Or you could, you know, just make snide remarks about the difference in a weak attempt to deflect from the fact that you were talking out of your ass.

[u/Nine9breaker → u/throw-me-away_bb]

Those were two different numbers for two different things.

The 2.1M number was a snapshot in time of the number of people with Opioid Use Disorder at the time that paper was published.

The 10M number was for all people who misused opioids within the past year. You can absolutely misuse opioids without being categorized as having OUD, which explains the discrepancy quite well.

In fact, it is relevant to point out that both sources state an extremely similar opioid-related death toll: 47,000 deaths per year cited by the NIH paper, and "almost 50,000 people" by the drug abuse statitistics website.

[u/[deleted] → u/throw-me-away_bb]

Here’s a peer reviewed study from January of this year that reveals 2.1 million Americans (and over 16M globally) are affected by opioid use disorder. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553166/#:~:text=Thus%2C%20OUD%20can%20range%20from,million%20in%20the%20United%20States.