From 2016 to 2018, Travis County Chief Medical Examiner Keith Pinckard said there has been a net increase in drug deaths by about 20-percent. Broken down into demographics, 79-percent have been men, the majority of which are white men, and Pickard says abuse of a cocktail of prescription drugs is a major player here.
Across age ranges, both the 16-30 and the 51-60 crowd show the highest rates of death. When it comes to illicit drug deaths, heroin remains a growing issue across all demographics.
Men make up 79-percent of those deaths. Pinckard said prescribed opioids are not as much of an epidemic as in other cities, but when two prescriptions are combined, the mortality rate spikes dramatically.
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