The over-prescribing of highly addictive opiate-based painkillers is the primary cause of our epidemic of opiate addiction, both to these pills and to heroin, their illegal street cousin—an epidemic that has become the leading cause of accidental death in the United States and in Rhode Island, taking nearly 30,000 lives nationally in 2014.
More than 200 million prescriptions for opiates, such as Oxycodone and Vicadin are written annually. Further, dosages have increased over roughly by more than 400% over the past 15 years or so. This step-up in potential availability, combined with an increase in the potency of the medicine has triggered what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an ‘epidemic of abuse.”
A recently released John Hopkins University School of Public Health Report on the Opiate Epidemic, which strongly recommends tightening up prescribing practices, notes, “Doctors often prescribe pain medications “in quantities and for conditions that are excessive, and in many cases, beyond the evidence base.” And 85% of Doctors themselves say that opiate based pain medications are over-prescribed
The bottom line is we’re not seeing consistent, effective, appropriate prescribing of painkillers across the nation, said Tom Frieden M.D., Director of the CDC, “and this is a problem because of the deaths that result.”
Despite the precipitous rise in abuse of prescription drugs, most doctors and other health professionals receive little or no training in how to appropriately prescribe and dispense the medicine to minimize the possibility of addiction or use by family and friends. Additionally, too many doctors remain uninformed on the effectiveness of pain relief alternatives, such as physical therapy, exercise and over-the-counter pain medications—treatments that new CDC guidelines recommend be tried first. Finally, the Rhode Island public is only beginning to become aware of the problem and what steps can be taken to prevent and address it.
A long-term sustained and multi-dimensional policy and political response will be required to successfully combat this epidemic.