The Current Opioid Death Toll Infographic

How many people die from drugs every year? Are our fears and priorities aligned with reality in terms of political stances, budgeting, and public interest? A lot of people might hear about the occasional celebrity heroin death, but most don’t realize how many people die from heroin every year and how much drug-related deaths have spiked in the past decade.

So what are the heroin overdose death statistics, and which drug causes the most deaths in the United States?

The answer is pretty shocking.

More than 20,000 deaths, which is more than the total number of homicides in the U.S., were caused by prescription opioids in 2015. And that’s not prescription drug overdose deaths overall; that’s just opioids like morphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. The number of heroin deaths per year has quadrupled in five years. Combine the number of heroin and fentanyl deaths with other prescription drug deaths per year and you have a number that’s more than ten times the total number of people who have died of domestic terrorist attacks since 1995. And those are just the annual deaths from heroin and other opioids, which seem to be increasing exponentially.

If you or a loved one has developed an addiction to heroin, fentanyl, or other opioids, don’t become one in the vastly growing number of deaths from prescription drugs or illegal ones. Fight back; don’t become a statistic.

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