• Original Articles By Dr. Lavin Featuring Expert Advice & Information about Pediatric Health Issues that you Care the Most About

    Alcohol is Still the #1 Drug

    By Dr. Arthur Lavin

    As our nation writhes under the devastation of the opioid epidemic, a recent article reminds us that good ‘ol alcohol still reigns supreme as the #1 most deadly drug.

    Technically, tobacco is the most deadly substance used.  We don’t tend to think of it as a drug, cigarettes are in a category all their own.  But if we were to include it as a drug we would see the numbers of deaths caused by drugs as follows:

    Deaths Every Year in America from Drugs

    • Tobacco- 500,000.  That’s right, about half a million Americans die every year from the use of tobacco.  The good news is that for the first time in over 100 years, older teens no longer smoke at a rate of 25%, now only 5% of our older kids smoke.  Very, very good news.
    • Alcohol- 100,000.
    • All other drugs- 50,000
    • Just opiates- 35,000

    Keep in mind that the number of deaths from opiates just 10 years ago was 15,000, it’s more than doubled since then.

    But even so, alcohol kills twice as many people every year as all other drugs put together.

    Teens, Alcohol, Cars

    The article that reminded me of the staggering impact alcohol has on life, was this one http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/3/e20163037 published this year in the AAP’s official journal.

    This article looked at all the deaths of kids under 20 years old from car accidents from 2000-2013.

    Over this 13 year period in the US, 84,756 children from age 0-19 years old were killed by a car.

    This is a shocking enough tragedy.

    But the authors found that in fully half the deadly accidents, the driver had alcohol in their blood.

    If we looked at just alcohol levels over the legal limit, over 1/4, 28% of the deadly accidents had this dangerous level.

    About half of the deaths occurred on weekend nights.

    Most importantly, they found if a state had 10% stricter alcohol, teen, and driving rules, 10% fewer people died in this 13 year period!

    BOTTOM LINES

    1. The epidemic of opioid addiction is very real, very explosive, very deadly.
    2. Alcohol remains the greatest killer of people amongst all drugs.
    3. The mix of alcohol, cars, and teens has led to the death of over 40,000 Americans every year, for no reason at all.
    4.  MOST IMPORTANTLY, if your state restricts teen access to drinking and driving effectively, your state will see fewer people killed in car accidents.
    5. At a time when many of us have been trained to see the word regulation as a terrible idea, keep in mind some rules not only make sense but are vital to life.  Like the one that demands we stop at red lights.   Our state legislators should make sure our adolescents cannot drive after drinking, at all.

    To your health,
    Dr. Arthur Lavin

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