A new study shows fatal drug overdoses in North Carolina jumped over a 12-year period. Officials believe prescription opioid use has played a large role in that rise.
Federal data shows that overdoses killed as many as 16 people per 100,000 residents in the state in 2014. That compares to about nine people per 100,000 in 2002.
The Charlotte Observer reports while the rise in overdose deaths was felt statewide, the problem appears most acute in the mountains and foothills.
Experts say growing addiction to prescription painkillers is driving the trend.
A 2014 report from the North Carolina Program Evaluation Division says those drugs, also known as opioids, killed more people in the state in 2010 than alcohol, cocaine and heroin combined.
The report also found that overdose death rates were generally higher in places where doctors wrote the most prescriptions for opioid drugs.
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