The "about half" figure came from an article in the LA Times that is dated, where they found that 47% of those who died from ODs had prescriptions for one or more of the contributing drugs. I cannot put my hands on that article now.
But the following information is available from a CDC study, and you can see those numbers are close:
"Among patients who are prescribed opioids, an estimated 80% are prescribed low doses (<100 mg morphine equivalent dose per day) by a single practitioner (7,8), and these patients account for an estimated 20% of all prescription drug overdoses </br>(Figure 3). Another 10% of patients are prescribed high doses (=100 mg morphine equivalent dose per day) of opioids by single prescribers and account for an estimated 40% of prescription opioid overdoses (9,10). The remaining 10% of patients are of greatest concern. These are patients who seek care from multiple doctors and are prescribed high daily doses, and account for another 40% of opioid overdoses (11)."0
These are not deaths, so those figures would be different, and they include only opiods, which doesn't represent the full picture (since people OD on other drugs including cocaine and benzos).
This is a broad range, but from the same paragraph:
among persons who died of opioid overdoses, a significant proportion did not have a prescription in their records for the opioid that killed them; in West Virginia, Utah, and Ohio, 25%–66% of those who died of pharmaceutical overdoses used opioids originally prescribed to someone else (11–13).
It is important to remember that many of those who eventually OD began abusing painkillers in the context of a physician prescribed addiction. I know a kid who was in a bad truck wreck, and two years later was very seriously to the "high dose" painkillers referenced above -- beyond help really. He's still alive but has lost his job, family and may well lose his life over it before it is over (last I heard he was taking Fentonyl (sp?), which is among the deadliest. There are physicians today who are prescribing Methadone for pain, which is an extremely dangerous drug.
It is the nature of these drugs that dosages increase over time. For those legitimately seeking pain management, it is necessary, as the amount of Oxycontin that worked for a person six months ago won't make a dent in the same level of pain today.
This is not all so much BS. A very large proportion of painkiller deaths are from legally prescribed medication. Rx opiods kill more people in the US than Cocaine and Heroin combined. |
