The costs of the opiate epidemic aren't limited to deaths. E.g. when people get HIV or Hep C through needle sharing, that costs millions of dollars per person to treat.

The new drugs for Hep C have a pretty high cure rate and cost less than $100,000.

So that's changed in the last few years.

> The new drugs for Hep C have a pretty high cure rate and cost less than $100,000.

And yet what percentage of the prison population has it? Last time I checked, treating everyone would be so expensive that it isn’t even on the table.

Good question. This article has some numbers:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/prisoners-with-hep-c-ge...

A lot of states are providing treatment to those with liver damage (which in the context of the thread means that they are likely reducing costs vs treating the chronic disease).

I guess $33 billion is too expensive to get popular support, but it really isn't that much money, especially if the reduction in future infections is taken into account.

> I guess $33 billion is too expensive to get popular support, but it really isn't that much money

Especially when even a small bridge costs a billion dollars these days, e.g.:

https://ctviewpoints.org/2016/11/08/the-billion-dollar-bridg...

There's way more at play than the loss of productivity of one person. Entire families are impacted, not just the addict. $375k in impact per addict? That could even be a conservative estimate from what I've seen with the impact growing up in the 80s. Everyone who comes into contact with the addict is losing so imagine 10 people per addict losing at east $37.5k and that's how you get that number.

The figure appears to include the current year economic impact of deaths in previous years.

There's a bunch of write ups of the talk the article is based on:

https://academicmediaday.wvu.edu/media-coverage

This is the best one I looked at:

http://www.timeswv.com/news/opioid-use-hurts-state-s-economy...

someone has to raise their kids, support their families? Also there's a loss on taxes. BUT, on the "positive" side, they die early, no SS or medical expenses. An overdose and all is settled.

Your widow/er can still collect.

As can your children under some circumstances.

> someone has to raise their kids, support their families?

Not asking rhetorically, but do you think that this is a pressing concern for many addicts?

>on the "positive" side, they die early, no SS or medical expenses...

It's funny that you raise this point. Last year I had a conversation w/a big name researcher who has been "studying" the Opioid 'crisis' as part of a broader matter.

He agreed that the prospects (social and financial mobility, etc...) of many of those who are affected wouldn't likely improve much even if Opioids were taken out of the equation. He stated, yes actually said, that alcohol would be a preferred vice because "One can live a pretty good life as an alcoholic."

I don't have any experience as an alcoholic, so I can't say, but I think the comment and the ease with which the researcher made it are telling of a greater issue.

To take an automotive analogy it is a bit like a major big manufacturer and how that as well as the headline jobs there are also jobs in suppliers and other local companies down to corner shop level. The opioid epidemic is like that in reverse.

It takes a while to overdose, before that there is a long journey of addiction, albeit not that long a period of time, more akin to the amount of time needed to do a university degree.

So the 'fun' starts at a party somewhere and soon the unlucky addict to be is buying and not just trying. This leads to a period of health problems leading to dismissal at work. During the last year of this 'work' they will not have added value to the company and may have cost many sales or other opportunities.

Soon there will be a draw down of funds from concerned friends and relatives, so the savings of others will also go to this, 'enabling' by paying rent checks and such like.

During this decline there will be a lot of medical things going on - nasty infections and horrors that only go with the disease of addiction.

Soon a circle of a dozen or so people will be affected, even if the addict did not have many friends.

Eventually these friends are cut off and only the drug scene exists. Sources of revenue then become stealing and prostitution. There is also supply of drugs, dealing.

Initially this may be for the party friends but then that is even more of a drain on the local economy as those party friends also have to come up with money.

Along the way there will be car crashes, so those cars don't go back on the road like company cars do, these people are no longer buying gas.

There will be police time with these car crashes, plus insurance and a whole lot of court misery.

With no vehicle but still needing to travel the addict then becomes likely to have things like bike crashes and strange things happen to them on public transport.

There may be prison or community service for some of this, perhaps some rehab that does not get adhered to.

They may get lucky and get another job, to give things a fresh clean start. However, the addiction gets the better of them. By the time the company has expelled them on some health dismissal thing that had to be tip-toed around, they will have wasted a year on getting anyone useful in that role.

There can also be some temping work done, but really it is very difficult for an addict to hold down a job.

The inevitable end can be spared with a miracle birth of a baby and the mother going serious about rehab. Some people are able to move away to another country or somewhere and rebuild their lives, this does not mean they will be adding to the $$$ of the local community.

Although death is inevitable, there is no way the headline figures reflect on the reality. For instance, an addict may be self medicating for some genuine physical pain that is only getting worse as they get older. So on their death certificate it mentions the other disease and not the addiction disease. They die of a heart attack, not smoking. Or in a car crash from a smashed brain, not because they had smashed their brain on heroin causing them to smash their brain around an A pillar.

At any one time there are many addicts going through the phases of doing things they said they would never do. In a given year, for the 881 folks dying officially, there are so many more, all of them directly costing their employers, their friends, their families, health services and so on. These are the fluffy costs. Imagine the addicts that have moved on to stealing or selling their bodies. Once quiet neighbourhoods then become involved in an arms race of security upgrades yet still that person that is now an addict finds opportunity in the area every time they need a fix. If people have had their cars broken into and all their hobby toys stolen then they find that stuff wasn't insured and don't buy it again. It's gone.

Then there are those children in single parent families where the parent is an addict. Other inlaws that could be working have to do the looking after.

All of this is a huge toll on a community. I take the cost given seriously and can see how even with a relative few people the cost can spiral.

Maybe these are the numbers the lawyers suing big pharma on behalf of WV came up with?

You aren't entirely wrong to have questioned the source(s)/motivations behind these numbers. There are lots of competing interests afoot. And not everyone who is calling this issue a "crisis" or who is expressing "concern" is doing so altruistically. I know that having spoken to them personally. Your question is valid, not entirely sure why you were down-voted.