evidence: America’s fentanyl epidemic, explained in six charts [...] SOMETIMES A TREND does not need to be new to be shocking. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times more potent than heroin, has long been used as a powerful painkiller in hospitals. But in 2014 America’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raised the alarm about the spread of illicit supplies of the drug. A decade later fentanyl is responsible for 70% of annual overdose deaths. Every 14 months more Americans die from taking the drug than were killed in all of the country’s wars combined since 1945. Our six charts below show why this is the most lethal phase yet of an opioid epidemic that stretches back to the late 1990s.