Overdose deaths in Colorado in general have grown in the last decade, according to the Colorado Health Institute. In 2014, San Luis Valley-area healthcare providers began limiting how opioid drugs are prescribed. But, as High Country News reported, the resulting decline in how often painkillers were prescribed was followed by a surge in heroin use.

Here is a 3rd post in 2-days on the state of Rural America, I listened to this on Colorado Public Radio (CPR) on station KCFR to which I’m an evergreen subscriber.

It is worth stating the obvious, that since rural counties as much more sparsely populated, the numbers per 100,000 can be illustrated much more starkly. A rural county may have only 100,000 or fewer people. It is also worth noting that Colorado is a recreational Cannabis legal state, and this is allegedly under threat from new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. While it’s pretty impossible to die from direct overdose of cannabis, it does cause indirect death through accidents, but the total number of cannabis related deaths is miniscule compared to opioid overdose alone.

The three post illustrate the real problem with rural America, and this one for me explained one way HOW the opioid epidemic has come about.