Research by the Centers for Disease Control revealed that prescription drugs are present in more cases of death by drug overdose than heroin or cocaine. As the number of prescriptions written for painkiller drugs has risen over the past fifteen years, the number of overdose deaths they are involved in has increased as well.

Opiate painkillers, cocaine, and heroin are the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths. Around 2002, the prescription drugs moved to the top of the list. That year, there were more than 16,000 deaths due to drug overdoses. While the rate of deaths due to prescription painkillers increased dramatically (by 91.2 percent between 1999 and 2002), the numbers for both heroin and cocaine have also risen.

The data makes it apparent that a large number of these overdoses from prescription painkillers were not from accidental misuse. That is, many of the individuals were intentionally abusing the drugs in order to get high. One indication of this is the fact that the majority of the people who died from drug overdoses had multiple substances in their bodies. Researchers noted that a large amount of opiate medication abuse is done by recreational users and people with psychiatric problems, and the average patient taking them for legitimate reasons should not be terrified of addiction.

Some people who abuse prescription drugs visit multiple doctors each month in order to get enough painkillers to sustain their addiction. This is part of the reason for the dramatic increase in the number of legitimate pharmacy orders for these medications in recent years. However, researchers pointed out that the prescription drugs were not necessarily prescribed to the people who died by taking them. Individuals obtain prescription drugs through a number of illegal means in the United States in order to continue their addiction. They can be ordered from unscrupulous online pharmacies, bought from others with a legitimate prescription, or stolen.