It’s no secret that the U.S. is in the middle of an opioid epidemic, and disturbing new data shows that drug overdose deaths may get worse before they get better. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released new figures revealing that overdose-related deaths in the U.S. nearly tripled between 1999 and 2014. Opioids, aka powerful drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers like Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percocet, were largely to blame.
Unfortunately, the increase in deaths seems to still be on an upswing. The CDC reports that from 2014 to 2015, death rates increased by nearly 16 percent, and 72 percent of those were from heroin and synthetic opioids. “Synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, which are mixed with heroin or used on their own, are much more potent than heroin and more resistant to opioid overdose reversal drugs like naloxone,” Linda Richter, Ph.D., director of policy research and analysis at The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, tells SELF. “They are cheaper to make than heroin and are flooding some states, like Ohio, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.” There was also a 3 percent increase in deaths from natural and semi-synthetic opioids like morphine, codeine, and oxycodone.
While more men than women are dying from opioid overdoses, there was a nearly 117 percent increase of deaths from using these drugs among young women under the age of 24.
While the news is disturbing, women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., tells SELF that it’s not surprising—and that there are several factors behind the increase. The first is that prescriptions for opioids have been rapidly increasing, she says. According to CDC data, the number of prescriptions for opioids nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2014, but there has not been a change in the amount of pain that Americans report. The CDC says that prescription rates are the highest among pain medicine specialists, surgeons, and physical rehabilitation specialists, but primary care physicians account for about half of opioid pain reliever prescriptions.
“Doctors need to better educate patients on the risks of these medications and perhaps reserve them for severe pain cases,” Wider says. There is also a need to educate people on when and how to taper off of prescription opioids, Wider says. Failure to do so, or to do so the right way, can increase a person’s risk of addiction. “They are dangerous medications with a high addictive potential,” Wider says.
The CDC also says the misuse of prescription opioids can lead someone to try illegal drugs: “Data have demonstrated that non-medical use of prescription opioids is a significant risk factor for heroin use, underscoring the need for continued prevention efforts around prescription opioids.”
Jason M. Jerry, M.D., an addiction specialist at the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center at Cleveland Clinic, agrees. "Most of our heroin addicts started with prescription narcotics,” he tells SELF. “Maybe they had a car accident, their doctor gave them prescription narcotics, and they soon found that they liked the way that it made them feel,” he says. Afterwards, some people may seek out an illicit drug like heroin because it’s “far cheaper” than prescription opioids, Jerry says.