We often read depressing headlines, such as “100,000 individuals died of drug overdoses last year,” but seldom pause to consider the people behind these statistics.
Over the past two decades, so-called designer drugs have infiltrated the U.S. from South America and China, harming, poisoning, and killing our country’s youth in droves. MDMA, ecstasy, fentanyl and other opioids provide a rapid escape for young people from the reality of the world around them. Tragically, for far too many, that escape becomes permanent.
Something particularly distressing is the impact that unnecessary procedures have on children. Around 80% of knee operations performed each year are entirely unnecessary. Apart from the long-term medical consequences of knee surgery, which often result in subsequent operations and restricted mobility for the rest of a child’s life, it also results in drug addiction.