The Facts
Our Country
- More than 16,000 people die in the U.S. each year from prescription opioid overdose.
- Almost seven million Americans abuse controlled-substance prescription medications, including opioid painkillers, resulting in more deaths from prescription drug overdoses than auto accidents. - DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart
- 4.2 million Americans over the age of 11 had tried heroin at least once
- An estimated 23% of them will become addicts - National Institute on Drug Abuse 2011
- The Northeast United States recorded a 211 percent increase in heroin overdose death from 2010 to 2012 - CDC
