it's one of prescription painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other legal narcotics, all related to opium. collectively they are called opioids. >> these are the opioid painkillers. and prescriptions for drugs like these have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years - to the extent that the us now consumes more than 80 percent of the global supply of these drugs. >> overdoses from prescription opioid drugs now kill nearly seventeen thousand americans every year. that's one overdose death every thirty minutes. >> the overdose rate which might have been 1 or 2 a month in our emergency department is now more like 3 or 4 or 5 if not more than that, in a 24-hour period. >> that's a massive increase. >> massive. >> over the past 10 years, we've had more than 125,000 americans lose their lives to painkiller overdose deaths. >> the food and drug administration recently approved a powerful new opioid painkiller called zohydro - over the objections of its own medical advisors and dozens of lawmakers. >> i thought we had learned our lesson with oxycontin. how can you say with any degree

and in fact the effects that hydrocodone and oxycodone produce are indistinguishable from heroin. so these drugs are census. we should be using them but we should not be treating low back pain fibromyalgia and chronic headaches with opiods. what we heard from bob twillman is the argument the industry has been making from the very beginning of this epidemic. they would like policymakers to think there are these two distinct populations -- millions of pain patients who are helped by these medications and drug abusers, and what they're saying is let's not penalize the the pain patients for the bad behavior of the drug arb abusers. the reality is that we don't have two distinct populations. there's a tremendous amount of overlap. and when you look at who's dying from painkiller overdose deaths, the majority appear to be patients having these medications prescribed to them for chronic pain. in fact, there are more americans dying from painkiller overdoses who are getting these medications from doctors than young people who we now see switching to heroin. >> woodruff: bob twillman if th

it's one of prescription painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other legal narcotics, all related to opium. collectively they are called opioids. >> these are the opioid painkillers. and prescriptions for drugs like these have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years - to the extent that the us now consumes more than 80 percent of the global supply of these drugs.

cameras caught realtor sarah west reeves opening the kitchen pantry and removing a bottle of liquid hydrocodone. she is now charged with drug possession and larceny. >>> today president obama invited three popular youtube hosts to the white house and sat down with interviews for each one and they discussed the president's state of the union address. the questions covered a wide range of topics including problems the government faces when it comes to cyber security. >> the challenge we've got is that most of the internet and the infrastructure that allows you to be posting on youtube and people accessing that stuff, most of that stuff is in private hands, not public. >> the interviews were made available live on the official white house website. >>> a d.c. man has made a poignant plea for help to social media to meet the father he's never met. this story has been shared more than 2,000 time. mark carter were born in 1996 to yvette marie carter in newark, new jersey. his mom died of aids when he was 2. he and his sister were raised by their grandma. after lamar exhausted all his efforts to find h

it's one of prescription painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other legal narcotics, all relatedopium. collectively they are called opioids. >> these are the opioid painkillers. and prescriptions for drugs like these have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years - to the extent that the us now consumes more than 80 percent of the global supply of these d

it's one of prescription painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other legal narcotics, all related to opium. collectively they are called opioids. >> these are the opioid painkillers. and prescriptions for drugs like these have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years - to the extent that the us now consumes more than 80 percent of the global supply of these drugs.

it's one of prescription painkillers - oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other legal narcotics, all relatedm. collectively they are called opioids. >> these are the opioid painkillers. and prescriptions for drugs like these have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years - to the extent that the us now consumes more than 80 percent of the global supply of these drugs.