Since 2006, more than 300,000 people in the United States have died of opioid-related overdoses. That’s more lives lost than there are people currently living in Newark, NJ, which is the 70th largest city in the US. Most people do not understand how large the number of US opioid overdose deaths really is. To put that number into an understandable perspective, we have related the number of opioid deaths to well-known disasters. We also explain other facts about opioid abuse that most people may not realize.

Infographic by opioid epidemic