A related commentary discusses this research. It highlights that if the US government wants to reduce the unconscionable toll that opioid overdose deaths are taking among its citizens, then it needs to adopt the effective public health approaches advocated by expert committees and commissions. This should include increasing access to methadone- and buprenorphine-assisted treatment and maximising their uptake by funding educational programs to reduce the stigma of addiction that discourages treatment seeking. The latter will need to address the prejudice in the community, often shared by opioid-dependent people and treatment practitioners, that drug-free approaches to treatment are the only acceptable way to treat opioid dependence.