Today is International Overdose Awareness Day. While most people immediately associate overdosing with heroin, the fact is all sorts of drugs, including, alcohol, over-the-counter medicines, prescribed painkillers, and stimulants, may be taken in quanities that become toxic and so overwhelm the body. Pain pills, which are opioid drugs and so similar to heroin, cause the death of nearly 15,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Both men and women die from painkillers, yet death caused by an overdose of these drugs has increased by more than 400 percent among women, compared to 265 percent among men, since 1999. For every woman who dies from taking too many painkillers, 30 women go to the emergency room for using these everyday drugs, reported the CDC.

Because today is intended to “raise awareness that the tragedy of overdose death is preventable,” click "view slideshow" to see infographics and learn how to stop these accidental deaths, whether you have access to naloxone, the life-saving overdose drug, or not.

Naloxone
(Naloxone, the lifesaving overdose drug) Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, intended to “raise awareness that the tragedy of overdose death is preventable." Reuters