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ADDICTION

A prescription for better opioid prescribing?

Nature Medicine volume 24, pages 1496–1498 (2018)Cite this article

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Informing physicians who prescribe opioids about opioid-linked deaths in their practice reduces future opioid prescribing.

The massive prescription of opioid medications has facilitated their misuse and diversion, triggering an opioid crisis that has been further fueled by easy access to heroin and the advent of even more potent synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl5. However, eliminating opioid prescriptions altogether cannot be the solution to the crisis, as the therapeutic needs of patients suffering from severe pain cannot be ignored. This highlights the urgent need for interventions to optimize opioid-prescribing practices in ways that minimize their misuse and diversion and the risk for addiction without jeopardizing the care of patients with pain.

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Fig. 1: Influencing opioid prescribing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Nora D. Volkow & Ruben Baler

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  1. Nora D. Volkow
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  2. Ruben Baler
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Correspondence to Nora D. Volkow.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Volkow, N.D., Baler, R. A prescription for better opioid prescribing?. Nat Med 24, 1496–1498 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0214-4

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