USA. Over-Prescribing Did Not Cause America’s Opioid Crisis
USA. Over-Prescribing Did Not Cause America’s Opioid Crisis
As a policy analyst, patient advocate, and moderator in social media support groups for people in pain, I have lost track of the number of articles sent to me which proclaim that America is in the midst of a crisis of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. A central assertion in many articles is that the crisis began with physicians over-prescribing to their patients in the 1990s and early 2000s, in an era of “Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign.”
Almost the entirety of present U.S. public policy on opioid pain relievers at Federal and State levels is founded upon this false claim. Governments are engaged in a vast exercise in regulatory over-reach, seeking to “solve” our opioid crisis by restricting dose levels and duration of treatment for both acute and chronic pain.
However, attribution of blame to doctors is flat-out wrong. How do we know this? We need only look at the data. (Richard A. Lawhern, Ph.D., in: lynnwebstermd.com, 30.03.2019)