Opioids overtake U.S. - Children are overdosing, getting sick and dying

'Opioids are now ubiquitous in the US, and they're in millions of American homes.'

The drug crisis in the United States has hit a new milestone with thousands of children overdosing from accidental ingestion.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According JAPA Pediatrics, between 1997 and 2012, hospitals saw a 165 percent increase in the number of children admitted for opioid poisoning.

The Yale School of Public Health published 3.71 children in every 100,000 is now admitted to the hospital for drug poisoning.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the US is "in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic," in which children are not immune.

The media has been showcasing several cases of children attempting to wake their parents, who overdose everywhere from their living rooms to grocery store aisles and even their vehicles.

With drugs so widely available in the home, it is not surprising to hear of children mistaking the pills for candy, or teenagers purposely experimenting with the drugs only to become hospitalized or killed.

The kids most at risk are those between one and 4-years-old and teens who struggle with suicidal thoughts, according to JAMA Pediatrics.

Julie Gaither, an epidemiologist at Yale School of Medicine and the lead author for the paper, said in an interview: "Most of the literature in the lay media and academic press has focused on adults. [But opioids are] a problem affecting people across the lifespan, from the neonatal period to the elderly.

"We need to pay better attention to how children are affected."

Gaither explained Methadone is one of the most abused medications available from pharmacies. Meant to be used as a pain reliever and part of the drug addiction detoxification process, methadone is often misused, can be passed into breast milk and can result in death. ,5-$?8) *8 9*05:

Doctors have been prescribing the medication less often but Gaither's team discovered illegal drugs are responsible for up to 25 percent of overdoses.

So how can we protect our children from accidentally or, perhaps worse, purposely ingesting prescription medication?

Gaither said: "Across the board, for all age groups, we need to limit exposure. We need to limit children getting their hands on these drugs - they may think they're candy. Opioids are now ubiquitous in the US, and they're in millions of American homes."

With methadone overdoses increasing by 950 percent between '97 and 2012, it is important to keep all prescription medications locked away in a cabinet or kept in an area children wouldn't think to look or are unable to find.

For more information on how to keep older kids from experimenting with prescription medication, or illegal drugs, please visit the NYS Department of Health website.

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