Question: Do more people die from illegal or legal drugs? In America the answer is legal drugs, particularly prescription painkillers known as opioids (e.g., Vicodin, oxycodone, hydrocodone). More than 15,000 Americans die every year from overdosing on opioids. That's more than those who die from overdosing on all illegal drugs, such as heroin or cocaine. Things have reached a state where more people die from opioids than car accidents. Addiction to opioids kills more than addiction to heroin and other illegal drugs combined.
The DEA has revoked the license of doctors and pharmacies including the largest, CVS and Walgreen's. One doctor was selling as many as 1,700 oxycodone tablets a day; other doctors seem to have been no more than drug dealers. The pharmacies are accused of selling "extremely large amounts" of these drugs in other than "legitimate channels". Pharmacy sales of these drugs was $9 billion last year, double the volume of ten years ago. The number of prescriptions has quadrupled in that time, so that now Vicodin is the most prescribed drug in the country.
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