Economic Aspects of the Opioid Crisis

Addiction to both heroin and prescription opioid pain relievers is a public health epidemic that is devastating families and communities across our Nation. Every day, 91 Americans die from opioid overdose. Over-prescription is partially responsible for this epidemic. Since 1999, the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled, and so too has the number of overdose deaths from opioids. The economic costs of that addiction are incredible, totaling more than $80 billion in 2013, from increased healthcare costs, higher rates of incarceration, and lost productivity. Drug abuse is devastating families, degrading communities, and undermining several parts of our economy. For several states, the problem is acute, and the crisis has a regional character. Columbus, Ohio, is part of the crisis' epicenter east of the Mississippi. In 2015, drug overdose death rates by state ranged from 40 per 100,000 in West Virginia to 6 per 100,000 in Nebraska. Drug markets, both legal and illegal, can be analyzed from the demand and supply side. The exact reasons for the extent of drug abuse are not clear at this point. With respect to demand, a changing perception of pain as a health problem in the 1980s by the World Health Organization in particular laid the ground for more intensive treatment. The labor market and the economy can have a major impact on demand, although not necessarily in ways one might expect. Some research shows less substance abuse when unemployment increases, for instance, and while the prolonged downturns in labor market and economic conditions are associated with social, behavioral, and health problems, they do not necessarily affect all groups in the same way or to the same degree. From a supply side, the particular locations where new, potent drugs initially happened to be become most readily available, and the path of geographic market expansion they took, track a visible trail of destruction. Without question, new developments in the sourcing, cost of production, potency, and retail delivery have affected the supply of both legal and illegal addictive drugs substantially.

• | Author: Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States
• | Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• | Publication Date: Oct 09, 2017
• | Number of Pages: 102 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1978017847
• | ISBN-13: 9781978017849