U.S. states are claiming that opioid manufacturers, distributors, and others who fueled the country’s decades-long opioid crisis will cost the economy at least $2.15 trillion by the year 2040

‘An extraordinary number of people are taking opioids’ In December 1995, the FDA approved a new opioid known as Oxycodone. Subsequently, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and health care providers began to prescribe them at greater rates.” The cost of millions of Americans becoming addicted to prescription opioids on the country’s economy has not gone unnoticed. Last year, while testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke of its effects on the workforce. “An extraordinary number of people are taking opioids in one form or another and it weighs on labor force participation,” Powell said. “It’s a national crisis, really. The humanitarian crisis of it is completely compelling but the economic impact is also quite substantial.”

The figure was reported in a filing made public Monday in the Southern District of New York in the bankruptcy case for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharmaceutical.