California ERs See Surge in Young People With Heroin Poisoning

California emergency rooms have seen a sixfold jump in the number of young adults in their 20s with heroin poisoning over the last decade, according to Reuters.

The California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development reports about 1,300 young adults between the ages of 20 and 29 were seen in emergency rooms in the state with heroin poisoning in 2014, more than six times the approximately 200 seen in 2005. During the same period, heroin overdose emergency room visits for adults ages 30 to 39 doubled, from about 300 to about 600. Teen heroin overdoses increased from 250 in 2005 to 367 in 2014.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported heroin overdose deaths increased 39 percent nationwide from 2012 to 2013. The CDC said 8,257 Americans died of a heroin overdose in 2013. The agency found a 6 percent overall increase in all drug poisoning deaths from 2012 to 2013, to 43,982 deaths. There was a 1 percent increase in prescription opioid deaths during the same year. Deaths involving cocaine increased 12 percent.

In a news release issued when the CDC numbers were announced, CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, said, “Most people who use heroin in the U.S. today used prescription opioids first. Reducing inappropriate prescribing will prevent overdose from prescription opioids and heroin.”