In an article from The Detroit News, in 2015, Dearborn police responded to 7seven fatal overdoses and at least 231 nonfatal overdoses - dozens of which involved painkillers. Nationwide, the number of fatal overdoses reached over 22,000 in 2014; 16,000 of them from painkillers.

An addiction to painkillers can become costly once the prescriptions run out. Often times, people turn to street dealers when they are no longer able to obtain prescriptions from their doctors. These street dealers knare cowgnisant of the high demand, so they are able to sell them up to $100 per pill. When the pills become too expensive, addicts often turn to a cheaper, yet deadlier, alternative - heroin. In short, heroin is illicit morphine, the strongest and most addictive painkillers known. Numerous studies have shown that people who are addicted to painkillers are 40 times more likely to use heroin. Nearly half of all people who use heroin started out by abusing prescription drugs. Every time a person uses heroin, even if it is their first time, they are literally gambling with their lives. In order to stretch the supply of heroin, dealers often “cut” the supply, which in short means mixing other, often deadlier, drugs into it.