Tom Petty: It was an "accidental" OD

Does anybody here no how many US citizens are killed by medical error in this country every year? You might be surprised to know that in this unhappy statistic, we're NUMBER 1! With more than 250,000 preventable deaths by error per year. Far more than those who OD and die from illicit drugs in the US BTW.

Scientists and sociologists have been tabulating these numbers for decades. There is no doubt about this. If anything, the numbers are underreported due to potential legal liability. The US healthcare system is (by the hard data) far worse than just about any other wealthy country on earth and we have by far and away the most costly care-- but the quality just isn't there and it continues to FALL bearly every year while prices are, by global standards, simply insane and unjustifiable.

Tom Petty was taking a lot of medications-- this made him especially vulnerable to toxic drug interactions.

Even wealthy rock stars aren't safe in a system like ours. And you can take that to the bank. 

I think I can put a bit of  personal  perspective on this overdose issue considering I spent about 10 yrs of my life addicted to opiates.  
Accidental simply means that he did not intend to take his own life.  For the moment discard perspectives that taking this type of drug automatically assumes that there is a potential for dying so why would one do it.   Because taking that perspective  aligns with the notion that even crossing the street you can lose your life.   In other words.  Of course people know the potential for calamity.    And  of  course more risk involved in taking  opiates than crossing the street.  But we dont stop crossing the street because we know there is a chance of being hit.  
  
  I digress.    First of all let me say that many will begin the opiate regimen for pain and while there is relief   from pain the fact of the matter is people many become addicted to opiates because of how readily it buffers one from the pain of living with whatever difficulties they are experiencing  in life concerning their state of mind.      

  A major factor is  how opiates  can  buffer psychic pain and  make one feel good,  comfortable to the max in your own skin.  And of course there are other ways to feel comfortable in ones skin.  Healthy ,  non addictive ways .. actually,  some people choose healthy and addictive. lol.    
  And to be clear-- this is not all to say that there are many people that are in extremely painful medical situations that need to take opiate medication and may need to take it for their entire life and thank the mother earth drug for the relief it offers.  
  
 My purpose here is to bring to the fore what is not often discussed  are the   reasons why people take opiates other than MEDICAL issues per se.      What I am primarily referring to is the alleviation of psychic or mental pain.  
 
Ability to alleviate  depression, anxiety and more of  which my clinical training vocabulary  fails me now in remembering more  because I have been retired for about 5 yrs now.

  At any rate--I would also suggest that considering the assortment of opiates in his system he was really pushing his mojo on that one.

    Perhaps one reason I am alive today is because I really was careful about quality and quantity.  And the insidiousness of the Fentanyl booster was essentially not out there back in my day .   Th

There was a bit of "bathtub" Fentanyl in the  late 80's right about when I was getting clean   which created the case of the frozen addict.   Google it.      These days I would definitely not want to be out there..  The use of Fentanyl added to street smack is just BEGGING  for trouble.   The dosage amount can not be controlled at this level of dealership.  It would need to be strictly pharmaceutical and even then Fentanyl is 50 to 100 more times potent than morphine..  Terminal cancer patients only need apply.  
  
 So, here it is.  OD's and death like no other time  in our country .   I got a figure just the other day that noted   1 out of 4 or 5 people are using in those states most affected.   Consider the factors of why are so many people  in pain and  are using.   That is a socialogical discussion pertaining to the failure to address society's true needs.   
Most opiates deaths are not suicides.   Why would you want to kill yourself when you know you are going to be feeling no pain however temporary that relief  is?    Of course there is a massive trade off here for that relief.   Addiction.  And when and if one gets clean it wont be an easy road for awhile and it essentially cant be done without support.  

I was in the German Health System for over a decade .
Far better than ours .
3 years ago on vacation I had to be hospitalized overnight in Finland.
Total bill , including ER, room, doctors and medicine was 58 bucks in US $.
And that was total no insurance involved .