The Opioid Crisis: Prevalence and Markets of Opioids

The US opioid crisis came in three waves - prescription opioids, heroin, and illicitly manufactured fentanyls - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resulting in the deaths of nearly 500,000 people from 1996 to 2019. In 2009, drug overdose deaths exceeded those involving automobiles. Opioid overdose deaths contributed to the decrease in life expectancy for Americans from 78.8 to 78.5 during 2014 to 2017. The overprescribing of a schedule II prescription opioid was escalated by pharmaceutical companies promoting a growing belief that pain was an undertreated condition. In 2012, the number of opioid prescriptions peaked at 255 million and deaths exceeded 11,000 per year. The typical prescription opioid abuser was white, male, and 45-55 years of age. The hardest-hit states were in Appalachia and the Northeast. When an abuse-resistant formulation was introduced for OxyContin, the most prevalent prescription opioid, users turned to heroin. From the early 1980s, a new pizza delivery style of Mexican trafficking in black tar heroin infiltrated many of the same states hit hardest by prescription opioids. Heroin overdose deaths reached 14,495 in 2017. As heroin abuse increased in states supplied with black tar heroin, fentanyl-contaminated white powder heroin began to appear in the Northeast. Fentanyl was quickly followed by fentanyl analogs. While heroin deaths continued to escalate through 2017, they were soon overshadowed by fentanyl overdose deaths. Finally, prescription opioid and heroin overdose deaths started to decline in 2017, though fentanyl deaths continued to increase. In late 2019, it appeared that restrictions on transportation and travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in decreased availability of illicit drugs, but by 2020 drug abuse had escalated in many countries. Globally, heroin was the primary opioid of abuse and only a few countries - including Canada, Germany, Austria, and Belgium - have experienced a significant increase in prescription opioids. However, illicitly manufactured fentanyls are a growing problem in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.