Mental illness Statistics And Current Strategies

        Mental illness Statistics

         And Current Strategies

    How do we address our suicide epidemic of some 40,000 lost lives every year or 12.6 suicidal deaths per hundred thousand population? Roughly 2/3 of suicides are by gunshots , many by cars or drug overdoses.

    Does it make sense to reduce guns, cars and drugs to help people with suicidal intent? Strangely this seems to be our current national goal.

  President Obama wishes to help people with mental illness by better gun control and more screening for psychiatric disorders.

     CDC and Dr. Freiden advocate more restrictions on prescription painkillers to reduce heroin deaths.

   Let's look at some useful numbers of annual fatalities:

Annual Deaths Per 100.000 Population

Drowning and Suffocation                3.4

Heroin                                                        3.5

Homicide                                                   5

Suicide                                                       12.6

Motorcycle                                               69*

*Per hundred thousand motorcycle riders

We make a lot of fuss about heroine which is a mental illness completely ignore motorcycle death epidemic and practically dismiss suicide which is a reliable indicator for our national  mental health.