Deaths from overdose of prescription drugs seem to be increasing in the United States, especially in West Virginia, according to a study led by the Us Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.

They found that two-thirds of people who dies from overdoses of legal pills in West Virginia had no prescription for the drugs that killed them, suggesting many legal drugs are being diverted for non-medical uses. The researchers used data from medical examiners, prescription drug-monitoring programs and opiate treatment program records.

Aron Hall of the CDC who led the study, said that use and abuse of prescription and particularly narcotic pain drugs have increased dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years.

“Now in the United States, drug overdoses are the second-leading cause of unintended deaths behind motor vehicle deaths. This epidemic is most pronounced in rural areas,” Hall said.

For the study, Hall and his colleagues analyzed deaths from unintentional overdoses in West Virginia and found that from 1999 to 2004, deaths from unintentional poisoning in the state increased 550 percent, the greatest increase for any state in the country.

In 2006, 295 people in West Virginia died from unintentional overdoses of painkillers, the study noted. Of these 67.1 percent were men and 91.9 percent were between the ages of 18 and 54. 63.1 percent of them used painkillers, but did not have a prescription for them and 21.5 percent had prescriptions for these drugs from at least five doctors in the year before their deaths. Women and younger people were more at risk of death because overdoses.

In order to prevent such deaths, researchers urge doctors and pharmacists to use state drug monitoring programs to see if their patients are getting controlled substances from other providers.