Some 50,000 Americans died from an opioid overdose in 2016, according to government estimates. That’s 137 people a day, or roughly one death every 12 minutes from prescription painkillers, heroin or the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
You can’t put a price tag on the emotional devastation that the opioid epidemic has wrought on families from Portland to Pittsburgh. But quantifying the economic impact of the crisis would help in marshaling resources to fight it.
