In spite of all the publicity surrounding the gun-control debate, a new report from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) found that the number of drug overdose deaths dwarfs the number of people who are killed each year by both firearms and motor vehicles. This is why we will like you to inform everyone you know who is facing an addiction problem about the next wind's IOP program.

CNSNews.com is reporting on the study which found that 46,471 people in the United States died from drug overdoses in 2013 – the most recent year for which data is available – with more than half of those deaths caused by prescription drugs and heroin.

This compares to the 35,369 who died in motor vehicle crashes and the 33,636 who died from firearms.

“Sadly this report confirms what we’ve known for some time: drug abuse is ending too many lives while destroying families and communities,” Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said as he released the 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment.

“We must stop drug abuse before it begins by teaching young people at an even earlier age about its many dangers and horrors."

It is vitally important to educate the public about the risks of prescription drug use, but doctors are also urged to pay closer attention to their prescribing habits.

This warning comes just days after a California court handed down a landmark conviction in the case of a doctor who recklessly prescribed the drugs used in the overdose death of three patients.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng became the first doctor in the United States to be convicted of murder in the United States for ignoring “red flags” about her prescribing habits that led to the overdose death of three patients.

Tseng, who was convicted of second-degree murder, gave prescriptions for powerful drugs to people who she knew had addiction problems, including an undercover agent who openly admitted to having an addiction issue when he posed as a patient looking for drugs.

“She wrote them a prescription for the very thing they’re addicted to,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Niedermann during the trial. “She pushed them over that cliff.”

The case is expected to set a legal precedent which will hopefully compel lax physicians to be more careful about prescribing highly addictive drugs to their patients.

Also to blame for the high number of overdose drugs are traffickers such as Mexican gangs who “remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States” says the National Drug Threat Assessment.

According to reports from law enforcement, some of these Mexican gangs are "relocating from major metropolitan areas to establish bases of operation in suburban or rural areas,” the DEA warns in their report.

If the media would pay as much attention to this problem as to the politically charged issue of gun control, thousands of American lives would be saved.

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