Many NY opioid addicts in treatment in 50s, 60s

Abuse includes legal and illegal drugs

MELVILLE, N.Y.—Adults in their 50s constitute the largest population in the New York metropolitan area seeking treatment for opioid drug abuse, followed by those in their 60s, highlighting a substantial demographic shift in drug use patterns, researchers in Manhattan have found.

A wide range of public health surveys has found notable changes in the population of people attracted to opioid drugs, which include heroin, a re-emergent street drug that has attracted people of most age groups and all income levels. On Long Island alone, heroin use has exploded in recent years alongside the skyrocketing illegal use of prescription opioids, such as the painkillers hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Dr. Benjamin Han and colleagues at the NYU School of Medicine analyzed the ages of patients in methadone treatment programs in New York City, which has one of the largest methadone treatment programs in the country. Their study uncloaked a startling new trend: People trying to shake addictions are increasingly older.

“We found a pronounced age trend in those utilizing opioid treatment programs … with adults 50 and older becoming the majority treatment population,” Han said in a statement. His research appears in the Journal of Substance Use and Misuse.

The new demographic research comes as Suffolk Health Commissioner Dr. James Tomarken encouraged Long Islanders to take advantage of the county’s classes that teach laypeople how to respond effectively to a drug overdose in the critical period before emergency help arrives.

Experts nationwide increasingly are referring to opioid abuse as an epidemic, and Han insists that it’s growing markedly among older adults.

He found, for example, that people 50 and older wind up in treatment for abusing any number of different opioids, including intravenous narcotics.

He examined the ages of people in substance abuse programs between 1996 and 2012 and found that 16 years ago adults 50 to 59 accounted for only 7.8 percent of the treatment population. By 2012, the percentage in that age group had jumped to 36 percent. People in their 60s made up only 1.5 percent of the treatment population in 1996 but increased to 12 percent by 2012. In raw numbers, there were 2,892 patients in their 50s undergoing treatment in 1996 but a staggering 12,301 16 years later. For those between the ages of 60 and 69 there were 558 in 1996 but 4,099 in 2012.

“These increases are especially striking, considering there was about a 7.6 percent decrease in the total patient population over that period of time, and suggests that we are facing a never-before-seen epidemic of older adults with substance use disorders and increasing numbers of older adults in substance abuse treatment,” Han said.