Drug Use and Addiction

Learn how science has deepened our understanding of drug use and its impact on individual and public health.

92,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2020, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. drug overdose deaths involving any illicit or prescription opioid drug from 1999 to 2020. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths by gender from 1999 to 2020