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Pharma Companies Share Blame For Opioid OD Deaths, Majority Says
- January 22, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
Americans might be severely divided these days, but a new study says there’s one thing everyone agrees on.
Nearly 9 out of 10 U.S. adults view opioid overdose deaths as a very serious problem, with high agreement across the political spectrum, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.
A majority of Americans are also place some responsibility for these deaths on pharmaceutical companies, rather than simply blaming those who use opioids.
“This finding was a little surprising,” said lead researcher Beth McGinty, chief of the division of health policy and economics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.
“Addiction is so stigmatized that we were anticipating that responsibility would still center on people who use opioids,” she said in a news release. “Pharmaceutical companies, however, seem to be front of mind, perhaps because lawsuits highlighting their role in the crisis have received a lot of news coverage.”
For the study, researchers surveyed 1,552 adults nationwide online last year, to understand their perceptions of opioid overdose deaths and how views differed based on political ideology.
The results come as U.S. opioid OD deaths dropped by nearly 27% from 83,140 in 2023 to 54,473 in 2024, researchers said in background notes.
Overall, 88% of people viewed opioid OD deaths as a very serious problem. This included 83% of conservatives, 89% of moderates and 93% of liberals.
About 81% viewed opioid users as most responsible for reducing overdose deaths, but nearly 73% said pharmaceutical companies also bear responsibility.
Liberals put more of the blame on pharma companies, with 83% saying the firms are responsible for reducing opioid overdoses.
Two-thirds of conservatives (66%) and 71% of moderates also pointed to pharma companies as contributing to overdoses.
On the other hand, opioid users were blamed by 88% of conservatives, 84% of moderates and 70% of liberals.
“Measures such as lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and investing settlement funds into programs that address addiction and overdose may gain more traction,” McGinty said.
Social stigma regarding addiction remains high, the survey found.
About 38% of all those surveyed were unwilling to have a person with opioid addiction as a neighbor, and 58% were unwilling to have an opioid addict marry into their family, results showed.
“The findings suggest that addressing the overdose crisis should remain on the policy agenda, but different views across political ideologies on responsibility and stigma may underlie preferences for future actions to curb overdose,” McGinty said.
In a next step, the research team plans to gauge public support for requiring that substance use programs offer medications like buprenorphine to treat addiction.
“While a lot of state programs are historically based on an abstinence approach, these medications are the most effective treatment for preventing overdose,” McGinty said.
More information
The National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on drug overdose deaths.
SOURCES: Weill Cornell Medicine, news release, Jan. 16, 2026; JAMA Network Open, Jan. 16, 2026
