More than the number of people who die in car crashes or by gun violence is the total of Americans who died of overdoses in 2017. That number released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control indicates it is more than 70,000.
Gateway Rehab’s new medical director, Dr. Jason Kirby, who has only been on the job a little over a month, stated that “Unfortunately, the rates of addiction are still on the rise in this country.” and Pennsylvania, as well as West Virginia and Ohio, rank among the highest.
Dr. Kirby says every demographic has seen an uptick from teens to people in their 80s and one of the main contributors is a drug with a strength 50-times more powerful than heroine: fentanyl.

Dr. Kirby says if it hasn’t affected you personally, it will and stresses that medicines like Narcan, an overdose reversal drug, “needs to be available, it is highly effective when used correctly when bringing people back from the brink of death.”