Everyone knows the country’s addiction crisis is bad, but even the direst headlines just barely scratch the surface. Overdose deaths are only one measure of the drug epidemic’s severity — and even the formal toll doesn’t capture the true extent of drugs’ lethal power, experts say. “That overdose number is only looking at overdoses. It’s not looking at the person who dies of bacterial endocarditis related to their drug and alcohol use,” said Cara Poland, an addiction medicine doctor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
Read the full article: The Addiction Crisis Is Even Worse than Headlines Can Convey //
Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/05/31/us-addiction-crisis-drug-use-disorder-mental-illness