CDC: Drug overdose deaths on the rise in Hawaii
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Hawaii’s rate of fatal drug overdoses remains below the national average, but ticked up last year, new CDC figures show.
In 2017, Hawaii saw 13.8 drug overdose deaths per 100,000 people.
That's up from 12.8 the year before.
The increase comes amid a worsening opioid epidemic across broad swaths of the mainland and as Hawaii officials warn they’re seeing opioid abuse continue to grow in the islands.
“Right now we have almost 700,000 pills out there for about 1.2 million people a year. So we’re definitely overusing, misusing opioids a lot,” said Alan Johnson, President and CEO of Hina Mauka.
Johnson said although opioids are highly addictive and can be deadly when overused, they are also extremely beneficial when combating pain, so they can’t get rid of the drug altogether. He is pushing for better regulation.
“Recently, we had passed legislation that said doctors have to use a computer program so they can see how much the person is taking from all doctors because there’s dentist as well as doctors, and you may have multiple doctors. So we’re expecting that that will slow down opioids to people,” Johnson said.
However, Johnson fears if slowed down too much, folks will get their fix from the streets. Therefore, he says they have new legislation coming out that will allow pharmacies to carry Naloxone, which can prevent a drug overdose brought on by opiates.
West Virginia had the highest drug overdose rate, at 57.8 drug deaths per 100,000 people.
Ohio (46.3) and Pennsylvania (44.3) rounded out the top three.
While Hawaii’s rate of fatal drug overdoses was below the national average (21.7 drug deaths per 100,000 people), it was significantly higher than other states.
Nebraska had the nation's lowest fatal drug overdose rate, at 6.4 deaths per 100,000 people.
Other states with low drug overdose fatality rates: Iowa (10.6), North Dakota (10.6) and Texas (10.1).
Nationwide in 2017, drug overdose deaths rose above 70,000 in 2017, up 10 percent to a record high.
The alarming figures were released on the same day that the CDC said the life expectancy in the U.S. had dropped for a second straight year, driven by the rise in drug deaths and and an increase in suicides.
Overall life expectancy for Americans was 78.6 years in 2017, a drop of 0.1 year.
While that doesn’t seem like much, it bucks a trend of rising life expectancy in previous decades and means that people are dying at younger ages.
“The last time life expectancy declined three straight years in this country was a century ago, in the middle of World War I together with the flu epidemic. This is not acceptable,” said Matthew Whitaker, Acting U.S. Attorney General.
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