The opioid crisis ranks as the greatest public health emergency the United States has faced
since the AIDS epidemic. In 2015, drug overdoses, largely fueled by illicit opioids, reached a tragic
threshold—accounting for more deaths than AIDS at its mid-90s peak. In 2016, 42,200 Americans
died from opioid-related overdoses, nearly five people every hour. According to a 2017 Council of
Economic Advisers report, the opioid crisis cost the nation $504 billion in economic losses in 2015,
or 2.8 percent of GDP that year.