Accidental drug deaths rise

The number of accidental poisonings -- almost all from overdoses of drugs -- rose by nearly 63 percent in the United States between 1999 and 2004.

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the biggest increase in death rates -- 113 percent -- came among teens and young adults.

While the national rate has increased, Judy St. John, director at the Center for Health and Counseling at Southeast Missouri State University, said no student enrolled at Southeast has ever died from an accidental overdose of drugs or alcohol.

"I've been here for 21 years, and we've had some close calls, but we've not experienced a death on the campus," St. John said.

"We've seen abuse of substances where people have been put in the intensive care unit, mostly related to binge drinking," she said.

The accidental poisoning statistics were based on death certificates filed with the CDC by state officials. They include overdoses of drugs taken for nonmedical purposes, legal drugs taken in error or at the wrong dose, or poisoning from other substances, such as alcohol, pesticides and carbon monoxide. Drugs were responsible for nearly 95 percent of the poisoning deaths.

Dr. Len Paulozzi, an epidemiologist at the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and lead author of the new report, noted that the biggest rates of increase came in the Midwest and South, where substantial parts of the population live in rural areas.

At Southeast, only a small number of students have reported they've taken a prescription opioid analgesic like OxyContin, said Kevin Stewart, coordinator for substance abuse and prevention education at the university. Based on an April survey, 99.7 percent of the student body has never abused opiates.

"There hasn't been an increase in students abusing OxyContin," Stewart said. "It's still a very small population."

Deaths from adverse effects of legal drugs taken in proper doses were not part of the study, nor were deaths from drug overdoses ruled suicide.

And while drug-overdose death rates among men remain almost twice that of women, the study found that the largest single rate of increase for all sex and ethnic groups (136.5 percent) came among non-Hispanic white females, a group that's also known to be at particular risk for prescription drug abuse.

"The results suggest that more aggressive regulatory, educational and treatment measures are needed to address the increase in fatal drug overdoses," Paulozzi said.

Scripps Howard News Service and staff writer Jennifer Freeze contributed to this report.