In a dark alley, a man takes his last breath as a syringe falls out of his pocket; another American dream has died in the top 20 most addicted, drug infested cities in America in 2017.
Deaths from drug overdoses and drug abuses have been a way of life in America; they are often easily available, and despite stringent penalties for possession and sale, little achievements have been made other than condemning people with a few grams of marijuana to life in prison. This is going on in 2017 when we are in possession of enough facts to know that the best way forward is the legalization of marijuana, which will regulate the industry, destroy drug mafias and earn billions in taxes. Further, this will allow people with a drug problem to come forward and get the help they need, instead of being ostracized which in turn leads to them hiding their habit.
As mentioned earlier, drugs have always been a way of life for a large percentage of the population in the US, with Vermont being the one of the most drug addicted states. I may be making it sound like drugs are the major problem only in the US. It is, of course, a worldwide problem, but many countries don’t even carry out studies to determine the extent of drug abuse. That’s why it is next to impossible to decide on the worst drug cities in the world or the most drug addicted cities in the world. However, considering Afghanistan produces most of the opium and heroin in the world, it would be perhaps appropriate to call it the drug capital of the world in 2015.
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Even if we return to the United States though, there aren’t significant studies on this topic which would create a clear and complete picture regarding the places with the most drugs. After all, it is quite hard to determine the presence of something which is illegal, and hence, its owners will go to any lengths to hide their complicity in this regard. What is surprising though, is that when I was conducting my research, the name of New York popped up much less than I thought it would. New York has a long history of being associated with drugs and partying, but apparently, that’s simply because the population is so large, it skews our perceptions. If you want to learn about the most drug addicted cities in NY, you should head on over to this article, which shows New York counties with the highest and lowest rate of drug-related diagnosis in newborns.
That is not to say that the US does not have a drug problem. Even before the recent opioid epidemic, we’ve had some informal drug capitals of the US, which include the likes of Espanola and Missoula. Of course, now, the scenario has completely changed due to the opioid epidemic which has taken the country by storm. In 2015, on average, 91 people died every single day due to opioid abuse. That statistic in itself is mind-boggling. Opioids are now responsible for more than 60% of the total deaths from overdose in the US. If you want to learn more about the states primarily responsible read our article – 10 states with the highest opioid abuse rates.
Thus, it is perhaps no surprise that opioid plays an important, almost integral role in our rankings. Our list is based purely on the most addicted, drug infested cities in America in 2017. If you want to learn about the most dangerous cities, head on over to the 35 worst, most dangerous, ghettoest cities in America in 2017 ranked by FBI. As said previously, information in this regard was hard to come by. After scouring the web, we came across a study by Arrest Records which showed the overdose deaths in the major cities of America. However, the latest data are from 2014. Since the more recent data is not available, at least when we talk about cities, feel free to check out WalletHub’s article on drug abuse by the state in 2017. So, for our list of top 20 most addicted, drug infested cities in America in 2017 we used both the total number of deaths by drug overdoses as well as the overdose rate of each city, obtained from the study mentioned above. Let’s take a look at the cities which are costing America $20 billion a year.
