American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts

by Chris McGreal

opioids in all its forms will eventually claim more lives than all the Americans lost in World War II. Overdoses are now the leading killer of people under the age of fifty, dragging down life expectancy in the United States, a phenomenon unique in the developed world.

The United States consumes more than 80 percent of the world’s opioid painkillers yet accounts for less than 5 percent its population.