More people now die from drug abuse than traffic accidents, according to data from the United States government. While preventable deaths have been going down in most categories, deaths due to drugs have doubled in the past 10 years with 37,485 people being killed by them in 2009 alone. Some of the biggest culprits are no longer illicit substances such as heroin and cocaine but prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. “The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets,” says Laz Salinas, a sheriff’s commander in Santa Barbara, California. (Los Angeles Times)