Michael Corsello walked out of the hospital Wednesday after overdosing earlier in the day, and he has a message for viewers. NBC10's Cydney Long explains. 
 
 Fourteen people overdosed in Camden in a four-hour period Wednesday from what the New Jersey attorney general described as "fentanyl-laced heroin." 
 
 None of the overdose victims died, but most of them were taken to Cooper University Medical Center. All of the overdoses occurred in the South Camden area, Camden County Police Department spokesman Dan Keashen said. 
 
 Michael Corsello, 27, told NBC10 he was one of the 14 people who overdosed. He spent several hours in the emergency room. 
 
 "My hands were bound," Corsello said. "They said that I was freaking out. I was punching myself in the face. They said that I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I was going ballistic and then I just dropped." 
 
 The series of overdoses took place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with many occurring on Broadway south of the Police Administration Building. 
 
 Police made an arrest related to the overdoses, Keashen said. Alexander Velazquez, 54, was charged Thursday with distribution. 
 
 New Jersey Attorney General Chris Porrino later tweeted from his personal account with a sense of urgency about the "mass overdose." 
 
 Corsello was holding heroin in his hands while speaking to NBC10 and said he planned on using it as soon as he finished the interview. He also desperately wanted to share a message about the toll his addiction has taken on him. 
 
 "I have bald spots in my head," he said. "I've gotta wear a mohawk for the rest of my life. I've got scars all over my body because of this drug. I want every kid to understand, if they can stay away from this, I've ruined three families." 
 
 
 
 Fentanyl is a powerful opioid about 100 times more potent than heroin. When used illegally, it is often converted to powder form by drug dealers. 
 
 The proliferation of opioids continues to claim more lives across the nation than car crashes and homicides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 142 people die from a drug overdose every day. Half of the deaths are linked to opioids. 
 
 President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency in August at the urging of the presidential opioid commission. The commission is led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has focused his last months in office around combating the opioid epidemic. 

 Underneath the total increase is the surge in deaths dues to fentanyl and related synthetic opioids, more powerful relatives of heroin and morphine. Widely tainting the illicit drug supply of heroin and counterfeit pain pills, these synthetic opioids doubled their share of the previous year's already alarming overdose toll, according to the new data, which is provisional, with final mortality figures expected in December. 
 
 The US is in the midst of an epidemic of drug overdose deaths, with nearly 65,000 people killed by heroin, cocaine, and prescription painkillers in 2016, a 21% jump from a year earlier. That rise was first reported by Mother Jones in September. 
 
 "Shocking numbers," epidemiologist Daniel Ciccarone of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine told BuzzFeed News. "I see only growing problems in my field work," he added, with fentanyl becoming the new normal for heroin buyers in places like Chicago and Charleston, West Virginia. 
 
 Fentanyl and other synthetic opioid painkillers are now the leading cause of overdose deaths nationwide, killing more than 20,000 people last year, according to provisional CDC data . 
 
 The increase is remarkable because fentanyl only arrived in the illicit drug supply in a noticeable way around 2012, and has now raced ahead of drugs usually responsible for overdose deaths. Fentanyl is roughly 50 times more potent than morphine and about 10 times more potent than heroin. 
 
 The death of Prince in April 2016 resulted from a fentanyl overdose, reportedly from counterfeit pain pills found in his possession. Carfentanil, an even more potent relative of fentanyl, has been linked to mass outbreaks of deadly overdoses nationwide. Research by Ciccarone and colleagues has suggested that their link to overdoses comes not from the potency of the these drugs in and of itself, but rather the sharp changes in potency they introduce into illicit drug markets. 
 
 Overall, opioid overdose deaths quadrupled from 8,050 in 1991 to 33,091 in 2015, according to the CDC. Heroin deaths quadrupled from 3,036 in 2010 to 12,989 in 2015, driven by a sharp increase in the heroin supply. Now fentanyl is creating a third wave of overdose deaths, as those first two waves have steadied to each kill around 15,000 people a year. 
 
 On August 10, President Donald Trump called the overdose epidemic a national emergency in remarks at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. However, he has still not made an official declaration of an emergency two months later. 
 
 “After waiting so long for an emergency declaration, I think it’s time to move on," former Office of National Drug Policy official Regina LaBelle told BuzzFeed News. 
 
 "Today, let’s look at what we need to do to address the epidemic – build an effective treatment system to reduce overdose deaths, improve our recovery system, expand opportunities to intervene at every stage of an opioid use disorder," she said by email. "If there is one issue where there is bipartisan consensus, it’s this one.” 

 (CNN) Opioid drugs -- including both legally prescribed painkillers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, as well as illegal drugs such as heroin or illicit fentanyl -- are not only killing Americans, they are shortening their overall life spans. Opioids take about 2½ months off our lives, according to a new analysis published in the medical journal JAMA . 
 
 In 2015, American life expectancy dropped for the first time since 1993. Public health officials have hypothesized that opioids reduced life expectancy for non-Hispanic white people in the United States from 2000 to 2014. Researchers have now quantified how much opioids are shortening US life spans. 
 
 The researchers noted that the number of opioid overdose deaths are probably underestimated because of gaps in how death certificates are completed. 
 
 From 2000 to 2015, death rates due to heart disease, diabetes and other key causes declined, adding 2¼ years to US life expectancy. But increases in deaths from Alzheimer's disease, suicide and other causes offset some of those gains. On average, Americans can now expect to live 78.8 years , according to data from 2015, the most recent data available. That's a statistically significant drop of 0.1 year, about a month, from the previous year. 
 
 Women can still expect to live longer than men -- 81.2 years vs. 76.3 years -- but both of those estimates were lower in 2015 than they were in 2014. 
 
 Life expectancy at age 65 remained the same in 2015. Once you've reached that age, you can expect to live another 19.4 years. Again, women fare slightly better: 20.6 years vs. 18 years for men. 
 
 Drug overdose deaths reach new highs 
 
 Drug overdose deaths are expected to continue to reach new record highs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects drug overdose deaths to top 64,000 in 2016 when the numbers are finalized -- that's more than the number of American troops lost during the Vietnam War. Most of these overdoses involved an opioid. Since 1999, the number of opioid-related drug deaths has more than quadrupled. 
 
 While prescription opioids like oxycodone or hydrocodone were considered to be driving factors in the increasing rates of overdose in the early part of the 2000s, heroin and illicit fentanyl have become the drivers for opioid overdose deaths in recent years. In fact, the number of overdose deaths related to fentanyl is expected to more than double, from an estimated 9,945 in 2016 to 20,145 in 2017, the CDC says . For the first time, fentanyl will be the leading cause of opioid overdose. 
 
 'It's a national emergency' 
 
 On the heels of the release of a draft report of the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, over the summer, President Donald Trump said "The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I am saying, officially, right now, it is an emergency. It's a national emergency. 
 
 "We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis," he added. "It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had." 
 
 Yet, five weeks have passed since Trump's statement, and the White House has yet to make any sort of formal announcement of a national emergency. 
 
 In addition, this week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who chairs the drug addiction commission, posted a letter on the White House's website requesting an additional four weeks for the commission to complete its final report. "In the interest of submitting ... sound recommendations, our research and policy development are still in progress," wrote Christie. "Accordingly, and pursuant to the Executive Order establishing the Commission, we are seeking an additional four weeks to finalize our work." 
 
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– Fourteen people overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl in a span of just four hours Wednesday in Camden, New Jersey, NBC Philadelphia reports. While none of Wednesday's overdoses in Camden were fatal, BuzzFeed—citing new data from the CDC—reports fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are now the leading cause of overdose deaths in the US, having killed more than 21,000 people last year. One epidemiologist calls those numbers "shocking." Fentanyl is about 50 times stronger than morphine and 10 times stronger than heroin. Researchers say the increase in overdose deaths—a jump of 21% between 2015 and 2016 driven by fentanyl and synthetic opioids—is likely due to people buying heroin or counterfeit pain pills and not expecting the spike in potency. Opioids, including fentanyl, are reducing life expectancy in the US by 2.5 months, CNN reported last month. American life expectancy dropped in 2015 for the first time since 1993, and overdose deaths are thought to be the reason. Experts believe overdose deaths will continue to increase, at least in the near future. According to CDC estimates, more Americans died of overdoses—the majority of which involved opioids—in 2016 than died in the Vietnam War. President Trump has called the situation a national emergency but has yet to officially declare it as such. (This mom shared a photo of her dying son as a PSA on the dangers of opioids.)