DRAMATIC RISE IN ACCIDENTAL DRUG-OVERDOSE DEATHS REPORTED
Unintentional fatal drug overdoses in the United States nearly doubled from 1999 to 2004, overtaking falls to become the nation's second-leading cause of accidental death, behind automobile crashes, the government reported.
Ref. https://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/09/drug....s.ap/index.html
It is becoming very common for people to over dose on any form of a substance without realizing it or meaning to. Nowadays people are buying drugs off the streets, and they are so much more potent than what they used to be. On top of that, people don't make it a point to make sure that what they are buying is pure. They are putting so much crap in their system, and half the time they don't truly know what it is.
The article mentioned that one large known drug type that has contributed was prescribed narcotics. I think it is a safe assumption that, despire physicians reluctance in prescribing narcotics, they are being given out more readily than they were fifteen years ago. Morhpine, vicadin, and other narcotic based drugs are highly addictive. If a person has a bottle of hydrocodone, then what is to stop them from taking more and more because it makes then feel good?