Public health officials in West Virginia have blamed an increase in opioid overdoses for doubling the cost of transporting bodies.
The state paid nearly $900,000 (£671,000) in 2017 to transport corpses, more than double the cost in the last two years, officials say. The number of body transports jumped from 2,200 in fiscal year 2015 to about 4,200 during the same period in 2017.
US President Donald Trump has created a commission to study the epidemic. He has called addiction to opioids - a class of drug covering everything from heroin to legal painkillers - "a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had".
US First Lady Melania Trump is hosting a discussion about the crisis on Thursday.
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