Why Overdose Deaths Skyrocketed After Opioid Prescriptions Dropped

The American crackdown on the drugs that kicked off the modern opioid overdose epidemic—prescription opioids—largely succeeded. According to data released by the American Medical Association (AMA) on Sept. 8, opioid prescriptions have dropped in every state over the last decade, plummeting nearly 50% nationally. The effort to prevent overdose deaths, however, is an abject failure. Annual opioid overdose deaths more than tripled between 2010 and 2020, according to federal data. Drug overdose deaths over a 12-month period surpassed 100,000 for the first time in April 2021, with about 75% of those deaths involving opioids. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Many factors contributed to this, but the fundamental problem is that the evolution of the drug market outpaced efforts to stop drug overdoses. “The prices of these drugs have never been cheaper. And the potency of these drugs has never been higher,” says Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a professor who researches the opioid crisis at the University of California-San Francisco. If prescription pills were the first wave of the opioid epidemic, the second wave started in the late 2000s, amid growing awareness of the risks posed by prescription opioids, according to Ciccarone. As states and the federal government implemented programs like prescription monitoring, health care workers rapidly reduced the number of opioid prescriptions they issued in order to protect their patients—and their medical lic...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Drugs healthscienceclimate Source Type: news