Local, state and national death rates from drug overdoses have been growing.

These include opioids, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and other drugs, according to federal data.

When one drug’s use declined, another moved up, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health found.

The journal Science reported hot spots of deaths from one drug appear in one area of the country, then move to another.

Middle-aged Americans overdose on different drugs than people in their 20s, the researchers found.

The growth curve really took off after 1999, the authors note. Doctors prescribed opioid painkillers more widely. New technologies made illicit drugs easier to produce and deliver, said Donald Burke of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have surpassed prescription opioids as a cause of overdose death.

New prescription guidelines and restrictions have made those drugs less available. Illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids that have replaced them are extremely potent.

Deaths from methadone have fallen since 2007 when it was removed from the preferred drug list by state Medicaid programs. It had been prescribed to Medicaid patients for pain.

The biggest victims of heroin were men in their 20s and 30s. Men were the most common victims of prescription opioids, in middle age as well as young adults.

Middle-aged women are heavily affected, too. Their death rates from prescription opioids approach those of men in their late 50s.