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Dollars to donuts you’re looking at ODs there,” said Kemper, pointing to some young people getting out of cars and heading to one of the gravesites. “Over eighty thousand people in America this year alone,” she added. “More than died in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East combined. And far more than die in traffic accidents or by guns, and it’s only getting worse. Next year we’ll probably be looking at over a hundred thousand dead. The opioid crisis is actually responsible for the life expectancy in this country starting to go down. Can you wrap your head around that? Nearly a half million dead since 2000. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under age fifty. We had a recent study done at DEA. Life insurance companies value a human life at about five million bucks. Using that number and other factors, our people projected the economic loss to the country each year due to the opioid crisis at about a hundred billion dollars. A third of the population is on medication for pain. And they’re not getting addicted on street corners. They’re getting addicted at their doctors’ offices.” “From prescription painkillers.
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