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Painkillers are Now More Likely To Kill You Than a Car

Car accidents are no longer the number one cause of accidental deaths in the United States. Drug poisoning is now top of the leaderboard of the ways we kill ourselves by mistake -- specifically, with prescription painkillers. A recent report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Centre for Health Statistics, cites analgesic pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin as the main culprits, more than cocaine and heroin combined. From 1999 to 2008, poisoning deaths increased 90 percent, while deaths from car accidents fell by 15 percent. Pharmacy robberies have also increased by a whopping 82 percent since 2006, presumably so we can obtain the prescription drugs with which to poison ourselves.