Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
July 21, 2019 4:00 p.m.

Many communities have been hit hard by the opioid epidemic.  Even small counties like Nassau are not immune to the devastating effects of opioid abuse.

The Washington Post recently published an article entitled “Drilling into the DEA’s pain pill database” .

This article provides information from a database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration tracking pain pills sold in the United States in every town and major city.  The Post obtained the data as a result of a court order that followed a year long legal battle for access to the DEA information database that includes drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies.  In compiling information for the article, Post workers reviewed 380 million transactions (representing 76 billion pills) from 2006-2012 for shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipment to pharmacies, The Post reports.

The nation recorded almost 100,000 deaths from the opioid epidemic during that same period.

The Washington Post has broken down the data by county to help educate the public on the extent of the problem in their own communities.  Their data for Nassau County is presented below.  The average number of oxycodone and/or hydrocodone pills sold per person per year in the county during the period:  60.9.

Click here to view previous article by Anne H. Oman, “Has Opioid Epidemic Hit Home?”

Click here to view previous article by Anne H. Oman, “In a “Community Conversation”, a Recovering Addict Tells Her story, and an Ex-Firefighter tells Group to “Get Your Hands on NARCAN®”