More than 52,000 people died from opioid overdoses last year, with death rates from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl surging 72 percent above 2014 levels.
The data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday comes the same week President Obama signed a law that gives states $1 billion to fight opioid abuse.
The number of opioid deaths is 10 percent high the 47,055 deaths that occurred in 2014, the CDC found.
The latest figures show that the spike is partially attributed to the rise in heroin and synthetic opioids that are more powerful such as tramadol and fentanyl. The death rates for synthetic opioids jumped 72 percent from 2014.
Heroin death rates also increased 20 percent from 2014 to 2015. Abuse of prescription painkillers is often a gateway to heroin abuse as heroin is cheaper and more widely available.
CDC added that synthetic opioid and heroin deaths surged among all age groups 15 and older, in both sexes and among all races and ethnicities.
The states with the highest growth in synthetic and heroin deaths were New York, with a 135.7 percent increase, Connecticut at 125.9 percent and Illinois, at 120 percent.
South Carolina had the highest increase in heroin rates at 57 percent, and North Carolina came in second with 46 percent.
The new data comes as the government attempts to grapple with the major public health problem.
Obama earlier this year signed into law the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which seeks to expand addiction treatment options and expand use of the overdose antidote naloxone to first responders. On Tuesday, he signed the 21st Century Cures Act, which helps fund the battle against opioid abuse.
