IN UTAH:
- There was a 400 percent increase in drug overdose deaths between 2000 and 2015.[1]
- Over 9 percent of Utah teens surveyed admitted to misusing a prescription painkiller one or more times during their life.[2]
- 24 people die every month from prescription drug overdose in Utah.[1]
HEROIN ABUSE:
- 1 in 5 high school seniors know how to get heroin easily.
- The vast majority of teens do not use heroin. In a 2017 national survey, only 0.4% of 12th graders used heroin in the past year.[3]
- 95.5% of 12th graders disapprove of taking heroin occasionally.[3]
- In 2016, over 600,000 people (12 or older) reported having a heroin use disorder.[4]
PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE:
- Prescription opioid analgesics, specifically those containing oxycodone and hydrocodone, are the most common types of prescription drugs that are diverted for misuse and abused.
- Each day in the United States, over 174 people die as a result of a drug overdose.[5]
- In 2016, an estimated 3.6 million people (aged 12 or older) reported past month misuse of opioid pain relievers.[4]
- 53% of nonmedical users (12 years or older) reported receiving the prescription drugs they most recently used “from a friend or relative for free.”[6]
FENTANYL:
- Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine.
- The death rate of synthetic opioids other than methadone, jumped by 72.2% from 2014 to 2015.[7]
- During 2016 alone there were almost 29,000 reports of fentanyl (up from 1,041 reports in 2013).[8]
1 Source: Utah Department of Health’s Violence & Injury Prevention Program. View source here.
2 Source: Utah, High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2017. View source here.
3 Source: University of Michigan, 2017 Monitoring the Future Study. View source here.
4Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, September 2017. View source here.
5 Source: Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 1999-2016. View source here.
6 Source: Prescription Drug Use and Misuse in the United States: Results from the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, September 2016. View source here.
7 Source: Rudd RA, Seth P, David F, Scholl L. Increases in Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths — United States, 2010–2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 16 December 2016. View source here.
8 Source: “Fentanyl: The Next Wave of the Opioid Crisis.” Statement from Louis J. Milione Assistant Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration. March 21, 2017.