Comparison of State Share of Federal Opioid Funding to State Share of Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths

August 2019

Of all the drug crises that have plagued the U.S., the opioid epidemic is among the most deadly in history– so much so that elected officials declared it a national public health emergency two years ago.

Drug overdoses involving opioids have claimed almost 400,000 lives over the last two decades (1999-2017), nearly the same number of U.S. service members who died during World War II. In 2017 alone, 47,600 Americans lost their lives to this drug crisis, and the number of drug overdose deaths has contributed to America’s declining life expectancy over the last three years.