The Rise And Fall Of The Opioid Crisis: A Comparative State By State Study

The rise of addictive prescription opioids has ravaged the United States, leading to overdose deaths and health concerns, thereby spurring government policy initiatives to alleviate the ‘opioid crisis.’ This crisis has expanded beyond prescription drugs to also include a rise in illicit heroin and fentanyl use. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 130 people die in the United States every day from an opioid overdose. However, this statistic is not uniformly distributed across each state. Some states, such as West Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, face much higher rates of opioid overdose. As such, this thesis will attempt to answer two questions. First, what existing conditions make a state’s population susceptible to high rates of opioid dependency and overdose. Second, which opioid related public policies are most effective at decreasing rates of opioid dependency and overdose. In the past, government policies have focused on punitive measures, such as incarceration, but these types of policies fail to address recovery for already dependent users. Only recently has the government launched initiatives to target treatment and recovery services and opioid addiction education. However, despite policy efforts aimed at reducing opioid misuse, addiction and overdose rates have continued to rise.