US life expectancy, currently 49th, expected to fall to 66th by 2050
cnn.com
cnn.com
Meanwhile in Australia, we are sitting at 4th place with universal healthcare and a half decent welfare system, although there is a housing crisis at the moment which is resulting in more homeless every year, if that keeps up we might fall below 4th place.
Hawaii: 81.0 (highest)
Mississippi: 71.9 (lowest)
Unfortunately, even Hawaii is barely above average compared to EU countries.
But Hispanics also have the lowest access to healthcare coverage, so democrats can’t blame declining life expectancy on not spending enough money on healthcare or whatever either.
The real reason seems to be that Americans are disproportionately fat, lonely, and live apart from extended family.
Cocaine and opium remained large social problems in the US for decades before they were finally outlawed. The consensus during those decades was that a federal law against them would be an unacceptable compromise of the liberty of the individual. (Various states had banned cocaine and opium in a timely manner, but these statewide bans did not do much to discourage use because of how easy it is for a resident of one state to get drugs from another state.) Then when they did pass a federal law against the drugs, to appease the pro-liberty faction, the law was not an outright ban, but rather a "stamp tax" where the details were such that it would be unprofitable to sell drugs and pay the tax (and the penalty for not paying included significant jail time).
The same thing happened with federal income tax: its enactment was delayed for decades out of a belief that it would be a violation of the liberty-promoting measures in the Constitution.
... but now it is surging in 20s/30s men.
A strong driver of suicide (in all cultures, across time) is rejection by your community. Nowadays, it's easy for neurotic people to feel that way because they don't have a community telling them otherwise.