Kim Blake’s son Sean died six years ago from an accidental fentanyl overdose in Burlington, Vermont. His age was 27.

Ms Blake wrote in a blog dedicated to her son in 2021, “Each time I hear of a loss due to substance abuse, my heart breaks a little more.”

‘Another family shattered. Forever mourning the loss of dreams and celebrations.'”

The US witnessed a grim milestone that year: drug overdoses killed more than 100,000 people across the country in a single year for the first time.

Sixty-six percent of those deaths were caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin.

A doctor can prescribe fentanyl to treat severe pain as a pharmaceutical drug.

However, criminal gangs also manufacture and sell the drug illegally. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that most illegal fentanyl found in the US is trafficked from Mexico using chemicals sourced from China.

Less than 40,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2010, and less than 10% of those deaths were caused by fentanyl.

In those days, heroin and prescription opioids were the main causes of death.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have released a study this week that examines trends in US overdose deaths from 2010-21 using data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.