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Facts Everyone Should Know

The May 18 article “The Straight Dope on Prescription Drug Abuse” demonstrated how prescribed opioids can lead to opioid and heroin addiction. As a Connecticut emergency physician for the past 32 years, I’ve cared for many patients with similar stories, and have witnessed numerous tragic deaths from overdoses of prescription opioids and heroin. There are a few facts everyone should know.

The primary cause of the opioid epidemic is the 400-percent increase in prescribing of opioids in the last 25 years. The result is that more than two million Americans are now addicted to prescription opioids, and opioid overdoses have killed more than three times the number of Americans lost in Vietnam. Drug overdose deaths outnumbered auto accident deaths by three to one in Connecticut in 2016.

Opioid addiction and deaths affect all segments of society: rich, poor, black, white, urban, and rural. Every town on the Connecticut shoreline has witnessed deaths from opioid overdoses in the last few years.

Eighty- to 90 percent of new heroin addicts started with legally prescribed opioids, usually leftover pills from prescriptions of friends or family members. Those leftover opioid pills in the medicine cabinet are dangerous.

To end the opioid epidemic, we must dramatically reduce (by 70 to 80 percent) the prescribing of opioids. We should use non-addicting medicines or non-drug modalities whenever possible. If a patient is prescribed a pain medicine, the patient should ask if it’s an opioid. The wisest strategy is to try to avoid opioids. If opioids are deemed to be necessary, they should be prescribed at the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time. Chronic use should be avoided. Once the pills are no longer needed, leftovers should be discarded.

The only way to end the opioid epidemic is to dramatically reduce our use of prescription opioids.

Michael Saxe, M.D.

Madison

Michael Saxe, M.D. is chairman emeritus of Emergency Medicine at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown.