According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare providers wrote over 214 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers in 2016, or 66.5 prescriptions per 1,000 people. Close to 218,000 people died from prescription opioid overdoses during the past 18 years. The economic burden of prescription opioid abuse, per the CDC, is estimated to be $78.5 billion a year.