Opioid overdose deaths—both opioid pain relievers and heroin—hit record levels in 2014, marked by the most recent 14% annual increase, according to new data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.(December 18, 2015/64(Early Release);1-5).
Opioids were the drivers behind the overall upward trend in overdose deaths seen from 2000 to 2014, when nearly half a million Americans died from drug overdoses,