[deyan]

Can someone put this into context, or share a source that does? How does this compare to other causes of death, for example?

The NYT article has comparisons on the absolute level (i.e. comparing to peak car crash deaths and HIV deaths from 20-30 years ago) - but those are outdated and misleading because they not relative and don't account for e.g. population growth.

I am just trying to get a sense for the true magnitude of the problem, beyond the scary headlines.

[nostrademons]

It's small relative to the total number of deaths in the U.S, but large relative to deaths for that age group (< 55):

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o...

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o...

I assume overdoses are classed as "unintentional poisoning" - they're the leading cause of death for ages 25-45, nearly double car accidents and 3x suicides. They're a very small fraction of deaths by cancer & heart disease, but those usually happen after 50+. In terms of "preventable" deaths they and car accidents are by far the biggest culprits. I'm surprised there's not more of a push toward self-driving cars and mass transit, but other than that it makes sense to focus on overdoses.

The other interesting thing that stood out to me in the data was how much the homicide rate has dropped since 1980. We have this perception that the world is getting more dangerous, but it's not actually reflected in the data, and by far the biggest danger to us now is ourselves.

[mruts]

From my personal experience, what's scary is that it's crossing all socioeconomic boundaries. I had two friends that died and both had high-paying jobs (finance and software dev) and seemed outwardly successful (much like myself I guess).

There are groups of people who we don't care about, and there are groups that we do. What's scary to people is the metastasizing of the problem from one group to the other.

[pwaivers]

Here is a really cool chart\tool: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/14/upshot/drug-o....

[autokad]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/upshot/fentan...

"Since 2013, the number of overdose deaths associated with fentanyls and similar drugs has grown to more than 28,000, from 3,000. Deaths involving fentanyls increased more than 45 percent in 2017 alone."

28,000 is a lot (same order as motor vehicle deaths), especially coming from 3k not long ago

[rtkwe]

The US has not grown that much. It's grown to 1.52x, 1.25x, and 1.22x the population for 1972 (car crash), 1993 (gun), and 1995 (HIV) respectively so it is above everything except the 1972 car crash peak. It's a big deal.