The New York Times reports in “The Upshot” that the synthetic drugs known as fentanyls have “replaced heroin in many major American drug markets, ushering in a more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic,” a conclusion drawn from new data on drug-overdose deaths in 2017 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that “correspond strongly” to fentanyl abuse trends. The CDC found “drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record,” while fentanyl overdose deaths “increased more than 45 percent in 2017 alone.” Fentanyl-related deaths rose from just 3,000 in 2013 to “more than 28,000,” the CDC data showed. The Times adds that drug-overdose deaths have increased so much “that they have contributed to reductions in the country’s life expectancy over the last three years, a pattern unprecedented since World War II.”

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.