Heroin has become the No. 1 overdose killer in the United States, but the number of fentanyl deaths doubled in just a single year, a new analysis showed.
It was the first federal government report to look not only at drug overdose deaths in general, but to dig down and see which specific drugs are killing people.
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The report found that while oxycodone was the top killer in 2010 and 2011, heroin passed it as a cause of death stating in 2012. Heroin, a cheap street drug, killed 10,863 people in 2014, causing 23 percent of overdose deaths, the National Center for Health Statistics reported.
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