A recent study, undertaken and detailed by lead researcher Dr. Irfan Dhalla from the St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, has revealed that during the current times, the death caused due to overdose of painkiller has more than doubled as compared to two decades back, and most of the patients who died had obtained the drugs though an official prescription from a doctor. Also, they had visited a physician in the last month of their lives.

The increase on death "mirrors" a huge rise in prescriptions for Oxycodone. The researchers have stressed that the potent opiate, which is found in both OxyContin and Percocet, has "proliferated in an epidemic of chronic pain turning Canadians into a nation of pill-poppers", who are now using "more prescription opioids per capita than any country but the United States and Belgium".

"Physicians will be very surprised to learn just how many deaths occur from prescription opioids each year", said Dr. Dhalla, while stressing that the study's findings reveal just how much the doctors have underestimated the "power and complexity" of these prescribed opioids, and their potential to cause harm.

The study has been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and considered data collected between 1991 and 2007, detailing that in Ontario alone, the number of painkiller related deaths doubled to "27.2 per million people from 13.7 per million" over the years studied.