The devastating opioid epidemic in the US has cost the government nearly $1.5trillion in 2020 alone after being exacerbated by the Covid pandemic and rise of fentanyl, new figures show.
There were a record 69,000 deaths from the powerful painkillers that year alone — a figure which rose to a new high of more than 75,000 in 2021.
The opioid crisis, which has been surging for decades, reached its apex during the pandemic when lockdowns and hospital closures left people