WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Opioids, including prescription drugs and heroin, killed more than 33,000 people in the United States in 2015, the highest figure on record, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report earlier in August.
"Building upon the recommendations in the interim report from the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, President Donald J. Trump has instructed his Administration to use all appropriate emergency and other authorities to respond to the crisis caused by the opioid epidemic," the release said Thursday.
The report noted that drug addictions take lives of more people than gun homicides and car accidents combined. The Center for Diseases Control estimated that the number of opioid overdoses in the United States have quadrupled in the past 18 years.
