THE OPIOID BACKLASH.

MEDICAL care; OPIOIDS; PHARMACEUTICAL policy; DRUGS of abuse; ANALGESICS

Since the prescription cutbacks took hold, the number of opioid overdoses - the best and starkest measure of the damage done by opioid abuse - has skyrocketed in the U.S. The simple reason: street drugs. ELIZABETH ARANT Suffering Patients CUTTING BACK ON OPIOID PRESCRIPTIONS HAS HAD a big unintended effect: It's made it increasingly difficult for legitimate patients with an ongoing medical need for treatment for severe pain to get relief from prescribed opioids. Illicit opioid usage accounts for nearly five times as many overdose deaths as prescription opioid deaths, according to the CDC. While the cutbacks have left chronic pain patients struggling to keep their prescriptions, they haven't stopped the routine prescribing of opioids for acute pain, says Kolodny, and that needs to change. [Extracted from the article]

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