Deaths caused by overdoses in heroin in the U.S. are on the rise, doubling within just the last 2 years in large areas of the country, a government study indicates.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, based on death certificate data, found heroin death rates doubled from 1.0 to 2.1 per every 100,000 people between 2010 and 2012.
Rates of heroin-linked deaths were up for both men and women, throughout every age group, and the increases were similar among white, black and Hispanic populations, the study found.
While the data covered just 28 states, around 56 percent of the U.S. population, experts said it's consistent with data gathered nationwide by the National Center for Health Statistics.
The increase, experts say, may be linked to reduced access to prescription opioids such as Vicodin and OxyContin, as the government attempts to deal with what it terms an epidemic of addiction to such prescription painkillers.
An increased supply of heroin, combined with restrictions on opioids, is turning many opioid addicts to the illegal drug, they say.
"There is heroin around and people do try it," says Dr. Hillary Kunins, assistant commissioner at the New York City's health department.
Illegal heroin costs much less that prescription painkillers, another incentive for opioid addicts to consider it, the CDC noted.
Heroin is also an opioid, and affects the same brain receptors as prescription drugs, producing similar effects.
Despite the rise in heroin overdose deaths, deaths involving prescription painkillers remain more common, CDC officials say.
"Reducing inappropriate opioid prescribing remains a crucial public health strategy to address both prescription opioid and heroin overdoses," says CDC Director Tom Frieden. "Addressing prescription opioid abuse by changing prescribing is likely to prevent heroin use in the long term."
Still, heroin overdoses remain a serious problem, experts say, pointing to New York as an example of a city beset by the drug.
About two people die from fatal drug overdoses each day in the city, and over the last 10 years deaths considered heroin-related have remained more prevalent than those linked to opioid painkillers, they say.
Grant Baldwin, director of unintentional injury prevention at CDC, said the study findings "are another reminder of the seriousness of the prescription opioid overdose epidemic and the connection to heroin overdoses."
The CDC and a number of federal agencies have been working on a "coordinated approach to reduce inappropriate prescribing and help people addicted to these drugs," he said.
