For some reason many people, myself included, thought that the overwhelming majority of victims dying of overdoses from the combination of fentanyl and heroin would be younger and from the inner city. While I haven’t found the demographic of deaths for Pennsylvania and New Jersey from this epidemic, I did stumble across some for Metro Detroit. The fact is that 30% of the deaths have been from residents that live outside the city and over 50% are over 40 years old! It looks as if in these instances you’re either “Old school” until you die or else it’s time to reassess your place in life and get some help.
Other notes of interest were that racially more white than minorities had been dying and that gender wise the deaths were split 50/50. This was also similar in the case with Chicago and it’s deaths. I guess it might stand to reason it will also be similar for PA and NJ.
Now remember folks this is medication taken by people with pain so bad that even morphine won’t help, and if you mix it (as many have done, some with heroin or cocaine, and some with all three!) you’ll more than likely end up suffocating, as fentanyl will depress your CNS to the point that you stop breathing.
This situation is a perfect example of why drug usage cannot be explained in simplistic terms, or dismissed in stereotypical fashion that it is only a problem of the impoverished and uneducated. This problem is not limited to the underclass; some of these folks were more than likely pretty smart and more than likely folks like you and me. The major difference being that for all their intelligence even they couldn’t see just want they were about to get into. And those decisions and poor choices unfortunately cost them their lives.
