According to the FBI, around 15,000 people are murdered in the United States each year. Terrorism incidents like the San Bernardino shootings add another few dozen fatalities, and war operations in the Middle East bring additional casualties into the mix.
Yet the number of Americans killed by FDA-approved pharmaceutical drug overdoses dwarfs all those fatalities combined. According to the CDC, there were 43,982 drug overdose deaths in 2013, and over half of those were caused by FDA approved prescription pharma drugs (opioids).