Opioid Crisis Fast Facts

Here's a look at the opioid crisis.

Experts say the United States is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. An estimated 8.9 million Americans aged 12 and older misused opioids in 2022, including 8.5 million prescription pain reliever abusers and 1 million heroin users.

Opioids are drugs formulated to replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium. Prescription painkillers like morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone are opioids. Illegal drugs like heroin and illicitly made fentanyl are also opioids. The word "opioid" is derived from the word "opium."

Overdose deaths have been on the rise for years in the United States, but surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic: Annual deaths were nearly 50% higher in 2021 than in 2019, CDC data shows. Data on overdose deaths.

Prescription opioid volumes peaked in 2011, with the equivalent of 240 billion milligrams of morphine prescribed, according to the market research firm, IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.

Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee had the highest opioid dispensing rates in 2020.

Opioids such as morphine and codeine are naturally derived from opium poppy plants more commonly grown in Asia, Central America and South America. Heroin is an illegal drug synthesized from morphine.