In the 1990s, there was a large increase in the marketing and manufacturing of prescription opioid pills by pharmaceutical companies. Opioids were falsely advertised to doctors and patients as a way to treat pain with very little risk of addiction.
Doctors began to prescribe large quantities of opioids for lots of different kinds of injuries and pain. Many patients became addicted to these pills even when they took no more than the prescribed amount.
Some unethical doctors, seeing an opportunity to make money from a new population of addicted patients, began running what are known as “pill mills.” These doctors’ offices were essentially trading prescriptions for cash. Pain patients and drug seekers (people who lie about symptoms in order to get drugs) were easily able to get opioid prescriptions from these offices.
Eventually, a flood of prescription pills made their way into the street drug trade.
Then, when legitmate doctors and law enforcement agencies began making it harder to access prescription opioids–legally or illegally–many people who were addicted to the pills turned to another opioid that was cheaper and easier to get from drug dealers: heroin. As the demand for heroin grew, so did the supply, and the number of overdoses and deaths due to heroin use in the U.S. skyrocketed.