I can't really find some of the statistics that first article pedals anywhere else so I decided to work from my own chosen sources.
My hypothesis was that the larger number of deaths due to pharmaceutical drugs was due to the higher percentage of the population using them.
I first gathered the percentages of the population that use prescription vs illegal drugs:
9.2% of Americans use illegal drugs as of 2012(1).
68.1% of Americans use prescription drugs as of 2009(2).
The chosen total population I will be using for the final calculation will be from the most up to date data.
Now for the numbers of deaths:
22,134 deaths due to pharmaceuticals as of 2010.
17,000 deaths due to illegal drugs as of 2000(3).
The total population of the USA was 316,148,990 as of 2013(4).
Now for some maths:
Since the figure for deaths due to illegal deaths was from 2000 which was down by 3000 deaths from 1990, we will take the liberty of reducing the figure by another 3000 deaths. The revised figure that will be used for the calculations is 14,000 deaths.
Number of drug users:
318,148,990 * 0.681 = 216,659,462 people who use prescription drugs
316,148,990 * 0.092 = 29,085,707 people who use illegal drugs.
Percentage of fatalities:
22,134 / 216,659,462 * 100 = 0.0102 % fatality percentage per prescription drug user user.
14,000 / 29,085,707 * 100 = 0.0481 % fatality percentage per illegal drug use.
Conclusion: Prescription drugs are more than 4 times as safe as illicit ones.
Discussion:
Though the methodological errors in this rough analysis are many, I do not believe they are sufficient to overcome the massive disparity between the two.
The figure for number of deaths for illegal drugs was from 2000 so there is a disparity of more than 10 years to account for. It is not at all clear whether subtracting 3000 deaths from the figure adequately covers for this. It could be that the downwards trend has a steeper fall or could even have reversed. However, it would take a massive fall in deaths for this to change the conclusion which is very unlikely even given the recent strides America has taken towards decriminalization.
There is also the fact that many deaths due to illicit substances will go unreported as such which means any statistics regarding scheduled substance abuse will be less reliable than prescription drugs. The same point goes against the percentage of Americans who use illegal drugs. The true percentage is likely higher. This would be difficult to impossible to account for so it has to be accepted given our current state of knowledge.
Sometimes, in clinical environments, it is hard to separate an adverse reaction from an improper administration of a drug. It could be that many deaths attributed to a pharmaceutical drug are due to improper dosages rather than the fault of the drug itself. However, the reverse applies too. It could be that a widely prescribed drug with many suitable substitutes is being used despite having an unacceptably low LD50. Sometimes as in the case of paracetamol, the risk of an overdose could be eliminated altogether if the pills were supplemented with a another substance. In that case, overdoses can be partially attributed to the greed of companies eager to cut corners for cheaper production.
I have also failed to analysis individual substances but merely gave a broad look. The most commonly used scheduled drug is cannabis which has an LD50 so high that you would die from suffocation long before the THC kills you. In contrast, many commonly used prescribed drugs are far more dangerous. However, the fact that despite this, the percentage of deaths for illegal drugs is still far higher makes the result even more striking.
It is clear that the legality of a substance can sometimes plays a bigger role in how safe it is than the nature of the substance itself!
Sources:
1. FastStats - Illegal Drug Use
2. http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org...357-1/abstract
3. Annual Causes of Death in the United States | Drug War Facts
4. Population Clock
|
|
Bookmarks