From Crains Cleveland Business
The number of deadly heroin overdoses in the United States more than quadrupled from 2010 to 2015, a new federal report finds, and Ohio is one of the states where the problem is the worst.
Reuters reports there were 12,989 overdose deaths involving heroin in 2015, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, compared with 3,036 such fatalities five years earlier.
“In 2010, heroin was involved in 8 percent of U.S. drug overdose deaths, a study by the Atlanta-based center said,” according to Reuters. “By 2015, that proportion had jumped to 25 percent.”
In 2015, the four states with the highest drug overdose death rates were West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio, the study found. While overdose death rates increased for all age groups, those aged 55 to 64 saw the largest percentage increase.
Reuters notes that experts say there is a link between heroin use and much higher rates of prescription opioid painkiller usage.
Rich Hamburg, executive vice president of the nonprofit group Trust for America’s Health, tells the news service, “You are 40 times more likely to use heroin if you started with opioid painkillers. Heroin is part of America’s larger drug abuse problem.”
