Opioid overdose deaths are on the rise in the United States. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 63 percent of the people, who died due to drug overdose in 2015, succumbed to prescription or illicit opioid abuse. The data suggests that the increase in rate of deaths due to prescription drug abuse is majorly driven by illicit opioids like heroin and fentanyl. Notably, the number of deaths due to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl increased by 72.2 percent. Read more