Polydrug abuse -- not use of individual drugs -- causes most fatal overdoses in Florida, contrary to what some media reports and state health officials say, Slate reported July 3.

The New York Times recently reported on a Florida study on overdoses and said the study concluded that legal drugs cause more overdose deaths than illicit substances. The Times reported that benzodiazepines caused 743 deaths, for example, but the study said that the majority of those deaths involved multiple drugs, said Slate media critic Jack Shafer.

Similarly, Oxycodone alone caused just 41 deaths in Florida during the study period but 556 deaths in combination with other drugs. Moreover, wrote Shafer, many of the deaths were suicides, not accidental overdoses, a fact that did not make it into the Times article.

"None of this is to endorse the recreational use of prescription drugs as safe," wrote Shafer. "The obvious conclusion, though, is one that Florida authorities and the New York Times avoid -- namely, that pharmaceuticals that are extraordinarily safe when taken under a doctor's direction can become wildly hazardous when combined with other drugs."