The study comes from personal finance website WalletHub, who released its report on which states have the biggest drug problems, and bad news for Michigan: the report found that the state has the second-highest level of drug abuse in the nation, as only the District of Columbia fared worse.
Contributing to the problem is Michigan’s rapidly growing opioid epidemic. Just how bad is it? Well, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, overdose deaths in Michigan have nearly tripled over the last 5 years. And consider this: more people died of an overdose in 2017 than the number of traffic accident related deaths and gun related deaths combined.
Rae Green is the founder and President of Sanford House Addiction Treatment Centers. Working on the front lines of drug abuse, she says, the epidemic is absolutely growing.
“Yes, we have an epidemic of opioids,” Green said. “We have also seen an uptick in Crystal Meth as well.”
According to the study, Michigan ranked 16th in the number of teenagers who used illicit drugs in the last month, 12th in adults taking illegal drugs in the last month, and 15th in overdose deaths per capita.