Economy
The Real Cause of the Opioid Crisis
According to a new study, economic despair is not the primary factor driving abuse of opioids.
America’s devastating opioid epidemic is one of the biggest problems the country faces. More than 2.5 million Americans are currently addicted to powerful opioids. Drug deaths have shot up since 2010, rising some 28 percent in just the past year, with nearly 175 Americans losing their lives to opioids everyday.
One persistent narrative, backed by a good deal of expert opinion, is that the epidemic is an outgrowth of deepening economic and geographic inequality, with “deaths of despair” brought on by the lack of high-paying, family-supporting jobs for working- and middle-class Americans, who then turn to drugs to cope with the pain and distress of economic dislocation.