Poor Whites Bear the Brunt of U.S. Opioid Crisis, Studies Find
“America’s ongoing opioid epidemic has struck poor whites harder than any other group, and a new study argues that racism likely played a role in that. Whites have better access to prescription medications than either blacks or Hispanics. That privilege may have been their undoing when doctors began to more aggressively treat pain with prescription opioids, said lead study author Joseph Friedman. He’s a medical student with the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine.”