Heroin-Related Deaths in the U.S.

The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has sparked a great
deal of interest in heroin overdose deaths in the U.S. The number of heroin-related deaths are available from the multiple cause of death option on the CDC WONDER database using the T40.1 ICD Code,“Poisoning by and adverse effect of heroin.”

However, this may not mean that the person died of heroin overdose because this code only picks up whether heroin is mentioned in the death certificate. In other words, someone may have died of a cocaine overdose or something else but had heroin in the system. With that said, here are our latest national numbers on heroin-related deaths in the U.S.:

1999       2,103

2000       1,999

2001       1,906

2002       2,219

2003       2,205

2004       2,009

2005       2,154

2006       2,192

2007       2,443

2008       3,086

2009       3,343

2010       3,094

Total: 28,753

A recent press release from the CDC also features some statistics on drug overdose deaths.