Sunday Focus: Doctors are the problem with opiod abuse.

"Authors of the current study say American clinicians are writing enough prescriptions to medicate every US adult for a month."

That's from a Reuters story.
 It finds that states that monitor doctors prescriptions have fewer problems with opioid addiction. 

And it is a huge problem. From an L.A. Times investigation:

"Over the past 20 years, more than 7 million Americans have abused OxyContin, according to the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The drug is widely blamed for setting off the nation's prescription opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 190,000 lives from overdoses involving OxyContin and other painkillers since 1999."

But U.S. News & World Report published a story that included this caution about eliminating fentanyl, the drug that apparently killed Prince::

"There's a growing movement in the United States toward more careful opioid prescribing, and that includes fentanyl. More than 6 million fentanyl prescriptions are now dispensed in the U.S. each year, according to DEA documents. There is still a place for fentanyl use among patients with intractable pain, experts say."  

 [Sunday Focus is a regular feature of www.timlennox.com]

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