A New Drug Epidemic
Mac Miller, self care, eerily predicts his own death showing him inside a coffin carving out a latin phrase, “Memento Mori” the ancient practice of reflection on mortality. This reflection is not meant to cause depression it instead is tool to create priorities and meaning for individuals. The phase is the antecedent of the more modern you only live once, instead of identifying life as the greatest importance, Memento Mori instead recognizes death to keep your life and its importance in perspective so you don’t waste your life. Miller recognized the dangers of his drug habits but his demons and battle with depression after breaking up with his long term girlfriend of two-years, Ariana Grande, crashing his Mercedes and getting a recent DUI pushed Miller to relapse causing him to overdose and die.
Test results have proved inconclusive however they are conducting more test which will provide more details, authorities say that Miller was seen partying September 8th, (the night before) at his San Fernando Valley house party. The next morning Miller was found dead, when the police searched the house they found small amounts of drugs however the police suspect the house was cleaned of drugs according to a TMZ report.
After releasing his new album Swimming, the influential 26 year old R&B artist Mac Miller was unexpectedly found dead in his home in Studio City, CA home of an apparent overdose. His lyrics hold stronger meaning now that we could understand what he meant in Come Back to Earth , MIller says “my regrets look like text I shouldn’t send” referring to his recent breakup with Ariana Grande that left Miller heartbroken he shares his anxiety singing, “I need a way out of my head” and presents a conflicts with what is healthy for his mind and what is desired from his brain, Miller choose the latter “alternate reality” that drugs can reproduce to make him feel like everything will be okay.
Millers message resonates with his fans who are also going through tough times or recovering from drug abuse. This tragic event is hard to pinpoint what drug caused the overdose but toxicology reports will be able to identify what caused the death in the following months.
On September 14, San Diego Authorities issued a warning about cocaine laced with fentanyl after the drug caused five people to overdose, two survived the overdose, but three died. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 time stronger that heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine and has been a large cause of a new drug epidemic that has taken the lives of more than 72,000 people according to preliminary 2017 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The strength of this drug is unlike any of the other opiates and drug dealers have begun to cut fentanyl into their drugs increasing profit margins by increasing potency of the drugs. This contamination of illicit drugs make them significantly more dangerous and have caused widespread death before the issue could be contained.
In Cincinnati, 174 users overdosed in six days in 2016 after taking heroin cut with carfentanil. Carfentanil being a higher concentration of synthetic opioid, is used as a large-animal tranquilizer and has also been a driving force in this new war on drugs.
The United States are now acting against the opioid crisis by reducing the amount of prescriptions admitted for opioids in 2019, stopping the flow of synthetic opioids into America and providing overdose reversing drugs to first responders to fight addiction first hand.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis as a nationwide public health emergency and are beginning to implement five-point objective to stop the flow of opioids and contain the drug problem. First to combat this problem HHS is improving access to prevention, treatment and recovery support services, second making overdose reversing drugs available and accessible, Third through public health reporting and collection we can accurately record and determine trends to see if initiatives are working to prevent the further use of opioids , fourth support cutting edge research on addiction and pain and the fifth is to advance the practice of pain management.
