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Michigan doctors wrote 11 million prescriptions for opioids in 2016

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Consider this: Michigan health-care providers wrote 11 million prescriptions for opioid drugs in 2015 and another 11 million in 2016 -- enough to provide every Michigan resident with his or her own bottle of narcotics, according to state data.

Opioids are a class of drugs that include the illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and prescription pain relievers such as OxyContin, Vicodin and codeine.

Opioids can be highly addictive, and their use and abuse is a growing issue in the United States. While the U.S. has about 5% of the world's population, it consumes about 80% of the global supply of prescription opioids.

Below are 11 facts about opioid use in Michigan from state and national data.

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Scott Levin / MLive

1. Opioid prescriptions in Michigan increased 41% between 2009 and 2015

In 2016, there were 11 million prescriptions written for opioids, about 1.1 prescriptions for every Michigan residents, about the same at 2015, according to the state's drug monitoring system.

That compares to roughly 8 million prescriptions in 2009.

The 2016 prescriptions accounted for 835 units of opioids -- enough to give every Michigan resident about 84 opioid pills, patches or other types of doses of opioid drugs.

You can click any county in this interactive map to see prescriptions by county for every 10,000 residents in 2015 and the percentage increase since 2009.

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Scott Levin / MLive

2. Deaths from heroin and opioid overdoses have doubled since 2012

Click on this interactive map to see the number of opioid/heroin deaths in each county between 1999 and 2015.

The database below allows you to look up any county to see the trend between 2010 and 2015.

With both data sets, the numbers are based on death certificates and list only deaths that specify opioid and/or heroin as a factor. That means the deaths are understated, because a significant number of death certificates for overdose deaths don't list the specific drugs at fault.

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Opioid/heroin deaths by county, 2010-15

You can sort the data by clicking on the column title. One click will perform a top-to-bottom ranking, with the lowest number first. Two clicks will result in a ranking with the highest number first.

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Source: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

3. Opioid/heroin deaths now exceed gun and traffic fatalities

The number of Michigan deaths from an overdose of opioids, including heroin, exceeded deaths from traffic crashes or gun fatalities in 2015, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

In total, 1,275 people in Michigan died from opioid overdoses in 2015, compared to 1,164 gun deaths and 840 traffic fatalities

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Source: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

4. Overdose deaths from other drugs has stayed about the same

Deaths from other drugs has stayed about the same over the past decade while opioid/heroin deaths have spiked.

In 1999, opioids and heroin accounted for 22% of Michigan's overdose deaths. In 2015, it was 67%.

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Source: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

5. Michiganders are more likely to OD on prescription drugs vs. heroin

Prescription opioids account for more than twice as many overdose deaths as heroin, although many addicts get their prescription painkillers illegally.

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6. About 1 in 5 U.S. patients get painkillers from their doctor

An estimated 1 out of 5 patients with non-cancer pain or pain-related diagnoses are prescribed opioids in office-based settings, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control

Prescribing rates are highest among pain medicine (49%), surgery (37%), and physical medicine/rehabilitation (36%), according to the CDC website. However, primary care providers account for about half of opioid pain relievers dispensed.

Prescription opioid use varies according to age, gender, and ethnicity, according to the CDC. Their data shows:

Older adults (aged 40 years and older) are more likely to use prescription opioids than adults aged 20 – 39.

Women are more likely to use prescription opioids than men.

Non-Hispanic whites are more likely to use prescription opioids than Hispanics. There are no significant differences in prescription opioid use between non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks.

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Source: Centers for Disease Control

7. Abusers of painkillers are most likely to get the drugs from friends or family

Most people who abuse prescription opioids get them for free from a friend or relative, says the CDC website.

However, those who take prescription painkillers for non-medical reasons 200 or more days a year are much more likely to get the drugs from a stranger or a dealer.

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U.S. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project

8. Michigan is slightly above average in rate of hospitalizations related to opioids

In 2014, Michigan had a rate of 230 hospitalizations related to opioid use per 100,000 residents, which was slightly above the national average of 225 inpatient hospital stays, according to federal data.

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U.S. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project

9. Michigan hospital stays related to opioids increased 21% between 2009 and 2014

Like most states, Michigan saw an increase in inpatient hospital stays related to opioid use between 2009 and 2014, according to a federal survey. Michigan's increase of 21% was slightly below the national average of 24%.

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Source: Centers for Disease Control

10. Michigan is among the states with more opioid prescriptions than people

From the federal Centers for Disease Control website: "Prescribing rates for opioids vary widely across different states. In 2012, health care providers in the highest-prescribing state wrote almost 3 times as many opioid prescriptions per person as those in the lowest prescribing state. Health issues that cause people pain do not vary much from place to place."

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Source: Centers for Disease Control

11. Michigan ranks 15th in drug overdose death rate

In 2015, Michigan had an age-adjusted drug overdose death rate of 20.4 per 100,000 people, the 15th highest rate in the country.

The five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose were West Virginia (41.5 per 100,000), New Hampshire (34.3 per 100,000), Kentucky (29.9 per 100,000), Ohio (29.9 per 100,000), and Rhode Island (28.2 per 100,000). Nebraska had the lowest rate, 6.9 per 100,000.