Trump supporters linked to counties with higher use of opioids, study finds

If you look at a map of opiate addiction in the United States, and another of the counties that voted for Donald Trump in the presidency in 2016, you may notice a similarity between the two sets of data. Now research shows that there is, in fact, considerable overlap between the communities that voted for Trump and the highly opioid-dependent communities.

The Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, recently released a study confirming the parallels between Trump's vote and the use of opioids, with 60% of voters in counties having a rate high opioid Republicans in 2016, and only 39% of counties with a low opioid use Republican vote.

A sign in favor of the 2016 election campaign of US President Donald Trump is attached to a tree in Endicott, New York, United States. REUTERS / Andrew Kelly

However, the researchers explained that this does not mean that the drugs are provoking Trump's support, or that Trump's support is causing drug use. Instead, these findings could indicate that socio-economic factors that may inspire someone to vote for Trump may also increase the likelihood that they depend on opioids. For example, the authors of the study mentioned feelings of marginalization, economic stress and poverty, lack of job opportunities and the feeling of being excluded.

The researchers reached this conclusion by analyzing and cross-referencing US Census Bureau data, health insurance records, and other data sets. They defined opioid addiction as anyone who had 90 days or more of prescription given within one year. Of course, there are unknowns in this dataset: for example, anyone who gets their opioids from illicit sources like the dark web would not be counted. They used insulin prescriptions as a control so that they would know that over-medication was specific to opioids, and not just happy prescription doctors.

The opioid crisis is attracting more and more attention as it is the most deadly crisis in American history. In 2015, one in every 50 deaths was drug related. In response, the United States has modified opioids for them to become Schedule II drugs, increasing restrictions on their prescriptions. However, unlike other deadly drugs, it is difficult to simply prohibit them because analgesics are used for medical purposes.