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The number of deadly heroin overdoses in the United States more than quadrupled from 2010 to 2015, a federal agency said on Friday, as the price of the drug dropped and its potency increased. There were 12,989 overdose deaths involving heroin in 2015, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, compared with 3,036 such fatalities five years earlier. "You are 40 times more likely to use heroin if you started with opioid painkillers," said Rich Hamburg, executive vice president of the non-profit group, Trust for America's Health.

The surprising number of patients who are dependent on opioids has widely been blamed on the overprescription of opioids used to treat everyday pain. However, opioids continue to play a critical role in managing pain for the millions of people who live with chonic pain in the United States.

The House passed the 21st Century Cures Act aimed at stimulating innovation, improving mental health services, and attending to the nation's opioid epidemic. It provides almost $5 billion in grant funding to the National Institutes of Health, with $1 billion of new funding over the next two years for opioid addiction prevention and treatment programs.

Hear Dr. Scott Fishman provide an overview of the pain epidemic in the United States, its causes, and the strength of UC Davis in filling this missing link.

The CDC and FDA have both recently been expressing concerns about opioid abuse and potential overprescription.

Expanesthetics' Editors Note: Without new pain relievers that address the underlying issues, there are limited options to address the problems associated with opioids, including addiction.