State officials are linking the over-prescribing of painkillers by doctors to a massive spike in the heroin death rate in Colorado, which has quadrupled since 1999.

Heroin deaths continue to rise in the state, but medical professionals say there is still widespread ignorance throughout Colorado about the staggering increase in opioid abuse. Colorado lost 259 residents to opioid overdoses in 2015, and that figure nearly doubled to 442 in 2016. The death rate is relatively small compared to fatality statistics in states like Ohio, where painkiller and heroin abuse are rampant, but officials stress abuse among residents is more widespread than ever, reports Gillette News Record.

“It’s terrifying to me,” Rebecca Waechter, a Colorado resident who survived a near fatal overdose nine years ago, told Gillette News Record. “It is next door. You don’t need to travel anywhere to get it. It is everywhere. And it’s cheap and just readily accessible. And people aren’t aware.”

Waechter said she has lost more than a dozen friends to opioid addiction. Larimer County is getting hit particularly hard by an influx of the opiate-based painkiller fentanyl, which is roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. The county suffered eight fentanyl deaths and nine heroin deaths in 2016. They also lost 14 residents to prescription painkiller overdoses.

“In the past, you had a picture in your mind of who a heroin addict was,” Fort Collins Police Services Lt. David Pearson told Gillette News Record. “Now we’re getting teenage children that are doing it. You’re seeing the demographics of the heroin abuse change.”

Democratic lawmakers introduced a proposal to place a fee on opioid prescriptions at the federal level with the revenue going to combat opioid dependence nationwide. The proposal from Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut, a state hit hard by increases in drug overdoses, calls for a one-cent per-milligram tax to be added to prescriptions for opiate-based painkillers.

Connecticut saw a 125.9 percent increase in synthetic opioid and heroin deaths between 2014 and 2015. Neighboring states are also experiencing sharp increases in heroin abuse and overdoses. New York experienced a 135.7 percent increase in synthetic opioid and heroin deaths between 2014 and 2015.

A record 33,000 Americans died from opioid related overdoses in 2015, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Opioid deaths contributed to the first drop in U.S. life expectancy since 1993 and eclipsed deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2015. Combined, heroin, fentanyl and other opiate-based painkillers account for roughly 63 percent of drug fatalities, which claimed 52,404 lives in the U.S. in 2015.

Follow Steve on Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.