There is an obvious opioid epidemic in the country. A rapid increase in the use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs began in the United States and Canada beginning in the late 1990s and continuing through the first two decades of the 2000s. By 2015, opioid deaths were up 369 percent (!!!). Cocaine deaths dropped and instead there was a spike in codeine and benzodiazepine related deaths. The majority of these deaths were accidental overdoses.
Lil Peep, a 21-year-old emerging star in the hip-hop, emo, and rap community, passed away overnight on November 16th. He was taking a nap before his show and was not responsive when people on his tour bus tried to wake him up-learning, soon enough, that he overdosed on Xanax.
The benzodiazepine medicine is so addictively powerful that it [Xanax] is being treated as an epidemic in itself.
Like OxyContin and Fentanyl, Xanax has become one of the addictive highs of choice in America. Xanax, in accordance with Drug Cite and the FDA, is responsible for 199 overdoses. 156 losses of consciousness, 110 intentional overdoses, 98 completed suicides, 83 comas, and 76 deaths. 77 now, if you include Lil Peep’s death.
Drugs were an integral part of Lil Peep’s music and speak to the glorification of opioid use in pop culture, including hip-hop and rock. He was suffering from depression and his death is in no way a means to romanticize 'popping pill's' or doing any sort of hard drugs when suffering from a mental illness. Or because your favorite artist was singing a line about it, or because you heard that a celebrity was hooked on hard drugs. Nobody is addicted to drugs for casual reasons. Depression is a cold, empty, and rotting feeling. So is an addiction to drugs.
I hope Lil Peep helps everybody realize that mental health issues aren’t trendy and popping pills isn’t supposed to be fun. Mental illnesses, like depression in Lil Peep’s case, are one of the leading factors in drug abuse. Nobody is addicted to drugs for casual reasons. Nobody wants to continue feeding their addiction.
So check up on your friends, tell them you love them and hear them out, under any circumstance. If you know one of your friends or family members are living with a mental illness, just check up on them. Cherish your friends, cherish your family, be safe, and don't abide by anything you hear in songs just because you may think it's 'cool.' There is nothing cool about death or shooting drugs or popping pills.