About OpiEye

A public map of the American overdose crisis: county by county, year by year, against the world.

What Is OpiEye

OpiEye is a free interactive map showing drug overdose risk by county across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It combines CDC provisional data, Census population estimates, and international health authority reports to help people understand the scale and geography of the overdose crisis.

The map covers over 3,100 counties with data from 2000 to the present, spanning the full arc of the modern opioid crisis from its ~17,000-deaths-per-year baseline to the 2022 peak of ~108,000. Users can explore deaths, emergency department visit estimates, and per capita rates over time. A memorial feature lets visitors honor people they have lost to overdose by placing a candle on the map.

Why It Exists

Drug overdoses kill approximately 67,500 Americans per year, one person every 7.8 minutes. That is down from the 2022 peak of roughly 108,000. Opioids are involved in 63% of these deaths, and fentanyl alone accounts for 54%. Most people do not know the risk level in their own neighborhood.

OpiEye exists to make that risk visible and usable for families, overdose prevention workers, public health officials, and anyone who wants to understand what is happening in their community.

Behind every number on the map is a real person. The memorial feature exists because data alone does not capture loss.

Ethical Commitments

These rules define what OpiEye is and what it will never become:

Privacy

OpiEye keeps only aggregate analytics: we count total page views and county clicks per day, but we never identify individual visitors. There are no tracking pixels, no third-party analytics scripts, and no cookies that follow you across the web. The only cookies on this site are session cookies for the optional account system. They are HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite=Strict, and they exist solely to remember your login if you choose to create an account. The map background is drawn from boundary files we host ourselves (US Census Bureau and Natural Earth), so viewing the map sends no requests to any outside service.

Memorial photos are stored on our server only when consent is given. Families can request removal at any time.

Data Sources

All data displayed on OpiEye comes from public sources:

For full details on how data is collected, processed, and where our numbers may differ from other sources, see the Methodology page.

Who Built This

OpiEye was created by Brogan Lee, with the assistance of others, after losing his brother to a fentanyl overdose in 2015. It is an independent public health data project, not affiliated with any government agency, pharmaceutical company, or law enforcement organization.

Support This Project

OpiEye is free and has no advertising. If you represent a foundation, health department, or organization interested in supporting or partnering with OpiEye, please reach out through the Feedback page or email BroganElliotLee@gmail.com.

Contact

To report a data issue, suggest an improvement, or request removal of a memorial, use the Feedback page.