“A new CDC analysis of drug overdoses among teenagers reinforces a point I make in my column today: Heroin use is much deadlier than it used to be, largely thanks to the war on drugs.
“The CDC reports that the rate of heroin-related deaths among 15-to-19-year-olds tripled between 1999 and 2015, rising from 0.3 to 1 per 100,000. Yet during the same period, according to the Monitoring the Future Study, the incidence of heroin use among 10th- and 12th-graders fell by 64 percent and 55 percent, respectively. By 2015 teenagers were much less likely to use heroin and much more likely to die as a result of using heroin.”