--- title: Heroin Causes 1 in 4 Drug Overdose Deaths In U.S. description: Drug overdoses in the U.S. are on the rise, and now one in four of them come from heroin, according to a new CDC study. canonical: https://time.com/4681721/heroin-drug-overdoses-study/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-24T15:26:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:37.124Z article:section: Health og:title: Study: 1 in 4 Drug Overdoses in the U.S. Are from Heroin og:description: Three times the proportion in 1999 og:url: https://time.com/4681721/heroin-drug-overdoses-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt672463784eed5819/6988bbb6cd1bba4faf70416c/heroine-overdose.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Illegal Street Drugs og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Study: 1 in 4 Drug Overdoses in the U.S. Are from Heroin twitter:description: Three times the proportion in 1999 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt672463784eed5819/6988bbb6cd1bba4faf70416c/heroine-overdose.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Study: 1 in 4 Drug Overdoses in the U.S. Are from Heroin > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=34875741-d6b5-4b81-9e03-c0b4acda4b1d&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Story Behind the Viral Photograph of Opioid Victims [Watch (HLS stream): The Story Behind the Viral Photograph of Opioid Victims](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/dPSUlrxR.m3u8) (6:12)  _Published 2017-01-23. The East Liverpool, Ohio police department decided to share on social media a picture of a couple overdosed and passed out in a car with a young boy in the backseat. Publishing the photo, say local law enforcement, was the city’s cry for help._  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 24, 2017 3:26 PM UTC  Equipment used in the preparation of illegal street drugs. Equipment used in the preparation of illegal street drugs. Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 24, 2017 3:26 PM UTC Drug overdoses in the U.S. are [on the rise](http://time.com/4496013/heroin-opioid-addiction-treatment/), and now one in four of them come from heroin. A [new study](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db273.htm) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 25% of overdose deaths are from heroin, which is three times the proportion in 1999 (8%). Overall, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in 2015 at 16.3 per 100,000 was more than 2.5 times the rate in 1999, when it was 6.1 per 100,000. Adults between the ages of 45 and 54 had the highest rates of overdose deaths in 2015, and the rates are increasing among non-Hispanic white people, nearly 3.5 times the rate in 1999, according to the CDC. **Read TIME’s cover story:** [Why America Can’t Kick Its Painkiller Problem](http://time.com/3908648/why-america-cant-kick-its-painkiller-problem/?iid=sr-link1) Researchers acknowledged that several factors could affect death rate measurement, including but not limited to the fact that drug overdose deaths can involve multiple drugs. Heroin, however, has been a growing concern in the U.S. The CDC [noted](https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/heroin/) in 2015 that heroin use has increased among both men and women across most age ages and income level. ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] When I observed her And then her color, I thought she was deceased at that point. As a police officer, they train you to expect the unexpected but even as much time I've had on, 3: 11 in the afternoon, that was the first thing from my mind. [ MUSIC ] On that day, I was actually on my way into work. I ended up behind this vehicle. I noticed that it was driving what I termed as erratic. After I made contact with the driver and he actually went unconscious, I wanted to render first aid and call for assistance. When I showed up, that's when I observed both of them passed out and near dead. It was during school time, I saw a lot of people there with their kids. There was a bus stop right there where all of this was happening. And the first thing I saw coming from my angle, is I saw, there's a kid in the backseat. I went around the back end of it Open the door up. He was really shy, really scared and I don't blame him. I could just see the pain and the trauma in his eyes. I decided to take several photographs to document the incident for court room evidence. I just unfastened the boy from his car seat and he eventually turned and looked at me and just like Climbed up on me, and he's wrapped around here on my side, sitting on my gun belt, and I could just feel this little kid's heart pounding, you know, right up on my ribcage here. I was calling for children's services, and our dispatcher called back saying they need some information, and I was pretty heated, I'm not gonna lie. I yelled back over the radio. Just tell them get their butts here now. Fred says, well let's send them a picture of this, and then they'll see why they need to get their butts here. [ MUSIC ] I was born and raised here in East Liverpool, it's a great place to grow up. You learn a lot about hard work. Unfortunately since that time, things have really deteriorated 75 % of our population receives some form of assistance from the federal government. And that's really the tragedy that we're dealing with here. Right now opioids are definitely our biggest problem. Cuz people are dying from it. This is what we're seeing lately. It's not just heroin. It's fentanyl, the car fentanyl. That's where they're overdosing because they're so strong We had an epidemic and not only us. people are passed out here. Small town America does. [ MUSIC ] He won't move getting up man. Cross countries every small department [ MUSIC ] We're fighting and fighting and fighting this. It's frustrating. We're losing the battle. We are. We're losing. [ MUSIC ] We're trying. We're gonna keep fighting but we're losing. This is something that's been stirring for the past five, six years and I think it's culminated into one big incident now. After the driver had pled guilty, The police chief showed me the photograph and I just stood there silently. I couldn't believe that someone would put that little boy in that position. Sadly it happens a lot but this is the first time where it was actually captured in a photograph. We were all in agreement that it should be seen. We talked about how we could Alter the child's face. You couldn't get the story and unfortunately as a public official it's a felony for me to blurb that photo. There's no number of words that can paint that type of picture. Coming into work the next day I could not believe the views that the picture had and how many times it was shared. We kinda looked at each other like Well good. Good, let's get this out there. Releasing that picture made things happen immediately that probably would not even have happened at all or at the very best would have taken years. It definitely got him out of there and that was the most important part. That picture started getting Agencies and policymakers and law enforcement, talking about the epidemic that's going on. And it drew attention to more resources, access for people needing treatment. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] We're opening a new clinic in East Liverpool, in conjunction with the outpatient services we already have, due to the need in the community [ MUSIC ] Look what's happened, our little community of 13, 000. We live in a day and age, unfortunately, where people think there are no lines. That anything should be out there. It's fair game in these type of circumstances. And here we're dealing with a four- year- old little boy who can't necessarily make those type of decisions as to whether or not he wanted to be in that photograph. The family has been trying diligently though to protect him. 20 years from now, is it gonna be that this is image of the heroin epidemic. As a clinician, I feel that it's my job to be able to advocate for people that are shriveling with addiction. I think that posting photos of addicts does probably have them feel pretty shameful and embarrassed. These pictures might keep somebody from reaching out for help, cuz they feel nobody cares about me. They should have just let me die and not use that Narcan. We know what we did. We're all confident in what we did was right. So if it upsets you, I'm sorry. But this is reality. I would do it again. If the same situation arises tonight, that will be posted. I never would have dreamed that this picture would have had the power that it has. That your sitting her interviewing me. Get people from the state calling me to help. They never called me before. That's all from the power of one picture. 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