Good news and bad news from the city’s illicit drug front: Heroin-related deaths have dropped from a peak of about 160 per year in the mid-1990s to fewer than 10. But the number of people overdosing on the painkiller Oxycontin has skyrocketed. Excerpt from a (pay-walled) Chronicle piece:
The use of oxycodone, a painkiller sold under the brand name Oxycontin, jumped a stunning 528 percent from 2004 to 2010 based on emergency room visits, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network. At the same time, non-heroin opiate use jumped 212 percent.
Bay Area life
