A National Opioid Crisis
Opioid addiction and opioid-related deaths have skyrocketed in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), deaths from overdoses in the U.S. totaled more than 63,600 in 2016, with 42,249 of those deaths attributed to opioids (1, 2). The death rate from opioid overdoses was five times higher in 2016 than in 1999. In a state-by-state analysis, in 2016 West Virginia had the highest death rate per 100,000 population, followed by Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.