How the opioid epidemic became America’s worst drug crisis ever, in 15 maps and charts
Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than HIV/AIDS did at its peak. These maps and charts tell the story.
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America is in the middle of its deadliest drug crisis ever.
With all the other news going on, it can be easy to lose
track of this fact. But it’s true: In 2015, more than 52,000 people died
of drug overdoses, nearly two-thirds of which were linked to opioids
like Percocet, OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl. That’s more drug
overdose deaths than any other period in US history — even more than
past heroin epidemics, the crack epidemic, or the recent meth epidemic.
And the preliminary data we have from 2016 suggests that the epidemic
may have gotten worse since 2015.
This situation did not develop overnight, but it has
quickly become one of the biggest public health crises facing America.
To understand how and why, I’ve put together a series of maps and charts
that show the key elements of the epidemic — from its start through legal painkillers prescribed in droves by doctors to the recent rise of the highly potent opioid fentanyl.
1) Drug overdoses now kill more people than gun homicides and car crashes combined
To understand just how bad the opioid epidemic has
gotten, consider these statistics: Drug overdoses in 2015 were linked to
more deaths than car crashes or guns, and in fact killed more people
than car crashes and gun homicides combined. Drug overdoses in
2015 also killed more people in the US than HIV/AIDS did during its peak
in 1995. So just as HIV/AIDS lives in the American mind as a horrible
epidemic, the current opioid epidemic should too.
2) Drug, painkiller, heroin, and other opioid overdose deaths are still on the rise
It took years of increasing deaths to get to this point,
but the opioid epidemic has only gotten worse over time. The result is
horrifying: Between 1999 and 2015, more than 560,000 people in the US
died to drug overdoses — a death toll larger than the entire population
of Atlanta.
The epidemic has by and large been caused by the rise in
opioid overdose deaths. First, opioid painkiller overdoses began to
rise, as doctors began to fill out a record number of prescriptions for
the drugs in an attempt to treat patients’ pain conditions. Then, people
hooked on painkillers began to move over to heroin as they or their
sources of drugs lost their prescriptions. And recently, more people
have begun moving to fentanyl, an opioid that’s even more potent and
cheaper than heroin. The result is a deadly epidemic that so far shows
no signs of slowing down.
3) Opioid overdoses are one reason US life expectancy declined for the first time in decades
In 2015, US life expectancy dropped for the first time in decades. There are many causes behind the drop, including rising rates of diabetes, obesity, and suicide. But a big reason for the decrease was the rise in alcohol poisonings and drug overdoses.
4) The epidemic is much worse in some states than others
Not every state in America has been equally impacted by
the opioid epidemic. States like West Virginia, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Ohio have been hit particularly hard, suffering far more
deaths than even their neighbors on an annual basis. And the epidemic
has generally been concentrated along the Rust Belt and New England —
due in large part, it seems, to the enormous number of painkiller
prescriptions that doctors doled out in those areas.
