““Worldwide pharmaceutical opiate production rose steadily but it was the United States...that now consumed 83 percent of the world's oxycodone and fully 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone... "Gram for gram...people in the United States consume more narcotic medication than any other nation worldwide." Drugs containing hydrocodone became the most prescribed drugs in America (136 million prescriptions a year...), and opiate painkillers are the most prescribed class of drugs... Between 2002 and 2011, 25 million Americans used prescription pills nonmedically. Amid all this, opiate abusers began to get younger...2.4 million people twelve years or older had used a prescription pail reliever nonmedically for the first time within the previous year- more than the estimated numbers using marijuana for the first time. The pain-pill abuser's average age was twenty-two.””
