Youth are the hidden victims of the opioid epidemic.
Nationally, the issue has grown so severe that in 2017, the Commission on Combatting Drug Abuse and the Opioid Crisis submitted a letter to the president requesting that the opioid crisis be declared a national emergency. In Indiana, there were 1,271 deaths from drug overdoses in 2016, a 33% increase from 2011. Drug overdoses have risen so sharply in Indiana that they now kill more Hoosiers than car crashes and gun homicides combined.