The DEA’s prescription opioid database contains manufacturing and distribution information for every pain pill sold in the U.S. The Post gained access to the database after a yearlong legal battle.
The publication reviewed nearly 380 million transactions involving oxycodone and hydrocodone from 2006-12 and found more than 76 billion pills were distributed in the U.S over that time period.
Here is a breakdown of pain pill distribution by state:
Note: Figures in the billions are rounded to the nearest hundredth, unless that value would inaccurately denote a tie. For these states, figures are rounded to the nearest thousandth.
- California — 8.05 billion pills supplied between 2006 and 2012
- Florida — 5.56 billion
- Texas — 5.43 billion
- Ohio — 3.40 billion
- New York — 3.34 billion
- Pennsylvania — 3.09 billion
- Michigan — 2.85 billion
- North Carolina — 2.55 billion
- Tennessee — 2.52 billion
- Georgia — 2.27 billion
- Indiana — 2.12 billion
- Illinois — 1.94 billion
- Kentucky — 1.90 billion
- Washington — 1.86 billion
- South Carolina — 1.83 billion
- Arizona — 1.72 billion
- Alabama — 1.70 billion
- Missouri — 1.599 billion
- Virginia — 1.596 billion
- New Jersey — 1.52 billion
- Oklahoma — 1.40 billion
- Louisiana — 1.37 billion
- Oregon — 1.34 billion
- Wisconsin — 1.283 billion
- Massachusetts — 1.281 billion
- Maryland — 1.16 billion
- Colorado — 1.02 billion
- Nevada — 1 billion
- Arkansas — 894,469,483
- Kansas — 875,161,421
- Mississippi — 854,553,185
- West Virginia — 853,486,418
- Minnesota — 841,686,630
- Utah — 696,125,020
- Connecticut — 675,351,129
- Iowa — 562,927,414
- New Mexico — 522,109,039
- Maine — 397,787,254
- Idaho — 384,943,300
- Nebraska — 312,985,327
- New Hampshire — 280,960,084
- Delaware — 276,177,276
- Rhode Island — 255,084,145
- Montana — 245,472,116
- Hawaii — 218,979,758
- Alaska — 138,652,246
- Wyoming — 126,677,136
- Vermont — 123,414,703
- South Dakota — 115,426,857
- North Dakota — 89,455,642
To access more data from The Washington Post, click here.
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