Pharmaceuticals Kill More Teens Than Illegal Substances in the US: Study

‘Combine the number of overdose deaths caused by heroin and cocaine, and you still haven’t matched the number of deaths caused by pharmaceutical prescription medications each year in the United States. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, pharmaceutical abuse was responsible for about 23,000 deaths in 2013 — that’s more than half of the overdose deaths in the U.S. that year.

Prescription drugs have a disproportionately large effect on teenagers. A recentstudy published in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing sheds light on this issue, which the CDC has labeled an “epidemic.”’

Read more: Pharmaceuticals Kill More Teens Than Illegal Substances in the US: Study