State governments are at the front lines of the country’s epidemic of drug overdose deaths. That’s why it is important that the National Governors Association says it will come up with protocols for dispensing prescription painkillers that are among the biggest sources of addiction and abuse in the country.
The protocols, or guidelines, would restrict how and under what circumstances doctors could prescribe a category of pain drugs known as opioids. They might, for example, impose limits on how many pills doctors could prescribe to patients who have had minor surgery or dental procedures.
More than 47,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2014; 61 percent of those deaths involved opioids like the prescription drug oxycodone, and illegal substances like heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of drug overdose deaths has increased by 140 percent since 2000, while prescriptions for opioid painkillers have quadrupled in roughly the same period. Experts say many patients who become addicted go on to use heroin and other illegal opioids.
[For more of this story go to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02...ype=article&_r=0]
Comments (0)