More Research Shows It's Not The Prescriptions, It's The Prohibition

Jeffrey A. SingerThe latest issue ofPublic Health Reports (the official journal of the Office of the Surgeon General and U.S. Public Health Service) presents a study by researchers at Boston University and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health which provides further evidence that the narrative driving present opioid overdose policy —that it results primarily from doctors prescribing opioids to patients in pain—is wrong. It results from non-medical drug users accessing drugs in the black market that results from prohibition. In the early part of this century the “drugs of choice” for non-medical users were diverted pres cription pain pills. But users have long since moved on to cheaper, more available, and more dangerous drugs.The researchersexamined data on opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts for the years 2013 through 2015, using records from the Massachusetts prescription drug monitoring program and postmortem toxicology reports to determine if the decedents had an active opioid prescription for the opioid(s) detected in the toxicology report on the date of death as well as the proportion of overdose deaths for which no prescribed opioid was detected in toxicology results.The authors found:Of 2916 decedents with complete toxicology reports, 1789 (61.4%) had heroin and 1322 (45.3%) had fentanyl detected in postmortem toxicology reports. Of the 491 (16.8%) decedents with ≥1 opioid prescription active on the date of death,prescribed opioids were c...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 9, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs