Opioids cost Ohio $8.8 billion

As President Trump prepares to declare the opioids crisis a public health emergency, a new report outlines just how expensive that crisis is — in more ways than one.

Opioid addiction, abuse and overdose deaths cost Ohio from $6.6 billion to $8.8 billion, according to a new report from the C. William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy at Ohio State University.

“To put this in perspective, Ohio spent $8.2 billion of general revenue funds and lottery profits money on K-12 public education in 2015,” the report says. “Thus, the opioid crisis was likely as costly as the state’s spending on K-12 education.”