Jul 10, 2012
According to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, New Mexico leads the nation per capita in drug overdose deaths.
According to the CDC report, New Mexico's overdose death rate is 27 per 100,000 people. The national rate is 11.9. Nebraska has the lowest rate of 5.5 per 100,000 people.
Across the country, the number of overdose deaths from powerful prescription painkillers more than tripled over a decade. According to the New Mexico Department of Health, the state's rate in 2009 for prescription drug overdose deaths was 2.9 per 100,000 people, 4.3 in 2000 and 11 in 2009.
"The prescription pills, he said, he loved the way they made him feel," Albuquerque mother Jennifer Weiss told KOB Eyewitness News 4 Tuesday.
Weiss lost her 18 year old son, Cameron, this summer from a heroin overdose. She said Cameron moved to heroin after enjoying the high from Percocet that was prescribed to him after a wrestling injury.
At the time her son started using the prescription, Weiss did not know kids were abusing prescription drugs. She said if she could do it all over again she would have kept the bottle herself and limited the number of pills her son took.
The New Mexico Department of Health and Public Education Department have surveyed high school students about prescription drug use.
They were asked if they used painkillers in the last 30 days to get high. The number responding yes was around 11 percent in 2007, but jumped to more than 14 percent in 2009