A federal study of substance use trends revealed that women, people age 18 to 25, and those with higher incomes and private insurance have been increasingly falling victim to heroin. The report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, found heroin use soaring among all groups. Heroin overdose deaths nearly quadrupled during that period, with most of the increase since 2011. Those most likely to turn to heroin still tend to be men, people with an annual household income less than $20,000, Medicaid recipients, and the uninsured. But the gap is narrowing between those groups and people who historically were less likely to use the drug. Heroin use doubled among women and more than doubled among non-Hispanic whites.

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