Unbelievable Map of Rise in Overdose Deaths in the U.S.

Thanks to Rubén Rumbaut for linking me to the story in NYTimes that follows up on their earlier coverage of the rise in overdose deaths among young white men in the U.S. that I talked about yesterday.

Deaths from drug overdoses have surged in nearly every county across the United States, driven largely by an explosion in addiction to prescription painkillers and heroin.

Some of the largest concentrations of overdose deaths were in Appalachia and the Southwest, according to new county-level estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of these deaths reached a new peak in 2014: 47,055 people, or the equivalent of about 125 Americans every day.

They have mapped these data and I have pasted in the maps below for 2004 and 2014. The rise over that decade is astonishing. My only thought about this is: Whoa doctor! And I mean that literally.