George Floyd's girlfriend said he took opioids to treat back pain, and eventually became addicted

• George Floyd's girlfriend testified that both she and Floyd struggled with opioid addiction.
• Opioid-related deaths have been on the rise for years in the US, a trend the pandemic has accelerated.

George Floyd started using opioids to treat a back injury, but as with many Americans, the pills became an addiction, his girlfriend Courteney Ross testified Thursday.

She spoke during the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd by putting his knee on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd said, "I can't breathe."

The topic of drug use came up to get ahead of defense attorneys' plans to argue that Floyd's death was due to drug use and medical issues unrelated to Chauvin's actions, according to CNN.

During her testimony, Ross said she has also struggled with opioids, which she first used to deal with chronic neck pain.

As Business Insider's Haven Orecchio-Egresitz reported, Ross testified that throughout her several-year relationship with Floyd, the pair went through periods of both using and staying clean, not always at the same time.

In March 2020, Floyd overdosed and stayed in the hospital for five days. His symptoms included stomach pain and dry foam in his mouth, Ross said.

A couple of weeks before his death on May 25, 2020, Floyd's behavior began to change, leading Ross to suspect he was on opioids again, she said.

Opioid addiction is a widespread problem in the US, responsible for a record 50,000 deaths in 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pandemic has only accelerated drug overdose deaths, most of which are due to opioids, the CDC has also found.

Specifically, deaths from synthetic opioids, like illicitly manufactured fentanyl, increased significantly immediately before and during the early months of the pandemic.

"The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard," former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said when the data was released in December 2020. "As we continue the fight to end this pandemic, it's important to not lose sight of different groups being affected in other ways. We need to take care of people suffering from unintended consequences."