Opioid pain relievers are used by 13% of the Canadian population,
Among Canadians who use opioid pain relievers, about 2% reported using them for non-medical purposes.
The rate of hospitalization due to opioid poisoning has been increasing, with an average of 13 hospitalizations per day in 2014–2015.
Preliminary data indicate that there were over 2,800 opioid-related deaths in Canada in 2016.
"Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction • 2017"
Children may consume pills or liquid medicine they find around the house, left out on kitchen countertops or on a bedside table to be used later, says Dan Budnitz, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC's Medication Safety Program.
This occurs when parents either fail to store medications safely or assume that child-safety caps and devices will deter kids from getting into them, he notes.
Parents may also underestimate the harm that ingesting even a single pill can cause in youngsters. “For certain long-acting opioids, for instance, one pill can be a fatal dose for a child," Budnitz says.
"Protect Kids From Accidental Drug Overdoses"
As psychiatric illness becomes better recognized and treated, the number of prescriptions for psychiatric medications has substantially increased. Psychiatric medications can be divided into several general categories, including the antipsychotics, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers. Many anticonvulsants are also used as mood stabilizers; these are discussed separately, as is lithium.
An estimated 8,000 people die each year in the United States from drug poisoning.
Canada is the second-largest consumer of opioids in the world, behind the United States
About 160 kids end up in the emergency room every day as a result of accidental medicine overdoses
The overall death rate among children and teens from prescription and illicitly manufactured opiates such as fentanyl increased 268% in 2016
In 2016, health care providers across the US wrote more than 214 million prescriptions for opioid pain medication—a rate of 66.5 prescriptions per 100 people.
Every day, more than 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for misusing prescription opioids.
More than 40% of all US opioid overdose deaths in 2016 involved a prescription opioid.
Drug overdoses claimed the lives of nearly 64,000 Americans in 2016. Nearly two-thirds of these deaths (66%) involved a prescription or illicit opioid.
Roughly 21 to 29 percent of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them.
Between 8 and 12 percent develop an opioid use disorder.
An estimated 4 to 6 percent who misuse prescription opioids transition to heroin.
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