In 2012, 12 million Americans aged 12 and older reported the recreational use of prescription painkillers; 16,000 of those users died from overdoses. Painkillers were now the most widely prescribed class of drugs in the United States; every 19 minutes someone died from an overdose. (OxyContin overdoses were indistinguishable from overdoses of opium, morphine, or heroin, all of which suppress the rate and depth of respiration. Patients breathe as few as four times a minute; blood pressure begins to drop, body temperature falls, and the skin becomes cold and clammy. Because the brain isn’t
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