THEY have America in a deadly grip. In 2015, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, 33,091 Americans died from opioid overdoses, according to the Centres for Disease Control—almost three times the number who perished in 2002. Nearly as many Americans were killed by opioids in 2015 as were killed by guns (36,132) or in car crashes (35,092). In the state of Maryland, which releases more timely figures, drug-overdose deaths were 62% higher in the first nine months of 2016 than a year earlier.
The opioid epidemic is quite unlike past drug plagues. Deaths are highest in the Midwest and north-east, among middle-aged men, and among whites. Some of the worst-affected counties are rural. In 2013 a 40-year-old woman walked into a chemist's shop in the tiny settlement of Pineville, West Virginia, pulled out a gun, and demanded pills. Don Cook, a captain in the local sheriff's department, says he continues to nab many people for illegally trading prescription painkillers.
