The CDC report “Deaths: Final Data for 2006” released in April 2009, reveals a spectacular 15% increase in drug induced deaths in 2006 compared to 2005 (latest data available.) These 2006 rates once again have reached yet another new national all-time record high for the 16th consecutive year. It reports that 38,396 Americans died in 2006 directly from “Drug-induced causes” the vast majority of which were overdose deaths from use of illegal drugs or from illegal use of legal drugs. ( See page 93 of 135 of the CDC report at link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf )
Steadily increasing OD deaths over the past two decades strongly indicate that current national drug OD death rates in 2009 are raging out of control at national crisis levels. The graph shows the 2006 total of 38,396 deaths with the trend line heading off the chart! This calculates to a rate of over 3,000 deaths occurring MONHLY and rising.
Parents’ drug prevention organizations from throughout the nation recognize that the vast majority of those drug overdose deaths result from the early introduction and addiction of schoolchildren to drugs and alcohol (which is an illegal drug for teens) in their schools. Therefore they have petitioned President Obama and Congress for early enactment of the demand-reducing national drug prevention strategy of implementing a federal mandate for health screening all secondary school students for drugs by Random Student Drug Testing (RSDT) see attached. The legislative precedent for such a mandate is the federal mandate for the 21 drinking age that Congress enacted in 1984 in reaction to widespread tragic teen auto crashes, injuries and deaths on the nation’s highways that had directly resulted from states authorizing teen alcohol use in the 1970s.
“Diagnostic drug testing is the very best means ever found for effectively reducing the kids’ exposure to the deadly disease of drug addiction. This has been well demonstrated in the military, businesses, transportation industry and in the over 4,000 U.S. schools currently using drug testing,” said Joyce Nalepka, president of Drug Free Kids: America’s Concern and former president of Nancy Reagan’s National Federation of Parents. “We parents sincerely appreciate that RSDT is fully supported by Congress, the ONDCP, the U.S. Education Department, DEA, U.S. Justice Department, and all health-related federal agencies,” she added.
Congress should reject recent efforts by professional drug legalization lobbyists to soften federal laws on drug abuse and reduce federal support for RSDT. Their frenzied attempts to get street drugs legalized will only help drug traffickers reap further profits from the drug-related destruction of families, schools and communities throughout the nation. Congress must support parents and their children against the drug traffickers.
“This avalanche of tragic drug overdose deaths among our children should serve as a wake up call to all members of Congress. They must support America’s drug-besieged parents who demand that federal support continue and be increased for utilizing RSDT as a compassionate non-punitive means of reducing the nation’s inordinate demand for drugs and reducing the ultimate harm of massive drug overdose deaths,” said
Source DeForest Rathbone, Chairman of the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy (NICAP.)
April 30, 2009