> If you're taking street narcotics I think cancer risk is the least of your worries
"least of your worries" is obviously an exaggeration.
While it's true that overdose deaths (attributable in my assessment mostly to bad public policy) have become a leading cause of death, cancer isn't actually far behind.
Overdose deaths (recorded by the CDC as "Poisoning" and classified under "Unintentional Injury" [0]) is the number one cause of death for Americans of both the age group 25-34 and 35-44, but cancer (recorded as "malignant neoplasms") is number four and number two, respectively.
So, if you're in the age group most likely to die from an overdose, then cancer is either the fourth or the second of your worries - far from the least.
> So, if you're in the age group most likely to die from an overdose, then cancer is either the fourth or the second of your worries - far from the least.
Why did you decide to collate by age? It's a non-sequitur.
I presumed that GP's comment, by using the phrase "least of your worries", was a reference to overdose deaths being a more serious concern. So I selected the two age groups in the WISQARS data in which overdose is the most likely cause of death.
