![]() In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total "economic burden" of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement. ![]() 1 The misuse of and addiction to opioids-including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl-is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. ![]() In 2019, nearly 50,000 people in the United States died from opioid-involved overdoses.
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