Recently released government figures show, for the second year in a row, that the life expectancy of an American is lower than it was the year before.

The culprit: drug overdose deaths, particularly involving opioids. As has been reported in recent blog posts, the opioid epidemic is continuing to ravage communities across the country, with municipalities in recent months filing lawsuits on behalf of their communities against both [the maker of the medications](https://cmglaw.com/Blog/2017/10/Washington-State-Cities-of-Everett) and also, in at least one circumstance, [the commission](https://cmglaw.com/Blog/2017/11/New-legal-battle-in-fight-over-the) responsible for overseeing the safety of patients and medications.

Of note, usually when life expectancy dips down one year it rebounds the next. The last two year drop was in 1962-63, and the last time there was a three year decline was in 1916-1918 during the worst flu pandemic in modern history.

You can read more about this here:

[Soaring overdose deaths cut U.S. life expectancy for 2nd straight year](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/soaring-overdose-deaths-cut-u-s-life-expectancy-for-2nd-straight-year/)