It's staggering! I just compared with traffic accident fatalities in 2017 and it's 40,200 (according to [1]). It hadn't occurred to me that drugs were a bigger killer than traffic accidents. Now maybe there's a big overlap over the two figures?

Edit: just realized the drug death count is only for ODs, so the overlap wouldn't be significant.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...

Look at the rate of opioid use in the US compared to the rest of the world.

The US consumes about 99% of the world supply of hydrocodone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/15/ameri...

These figures are old (2015), but eye-opening.

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/who-regional-office-americas-...

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/sites/www...

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/sites/www...

Here's EURO

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/sites/www...

http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/sites/www...

You can use that site to compare regions. http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/explore-data

It really is huge. It is so high experts describe it as a "demographic change," It is literally changing the demographics and population distribution of the US.