Fentanyl has displaced heroin as the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States. Not only have overdoses involving fentanyl skyrocketed over the past years, but those involving heroin have actually dropped by about a half, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There were nearly 110,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12 months ending March 2022. Over 73,000 of those involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. That’s up from less than 41,000 two years ago and about 23,000 five years ago.
