Results Among adults aged 18 through 64 years, the prevalence of nonmedical use of prescription opioids decreased from 5.4% (95% CI, 5.08%-5.70%) in 2003 to 4.9% (95% CI, 4.58%-5.22%) in 2013 (absolute difference, -0.5%; 95% CI, -0.11% to -0.89%), but the prevalence of prescription opioid use disorders increased from 0.6% (95% CI, 0.54%-0.76%) in 2003 to 0.9% (95% CI, 0.75%-1.01%) in 2013 (absolute difference, 0.3%; 95% CI, 0.03%-0.43%).
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“It is encouraging that the percentage of nonmedical use of opioids [narcotics] decreased”, said study author Dr. Beth Han, a statistician with the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
In an email, Han told Reuters Health that high-intensity opioid use had increased during the 2000s, a time of increased prescribing of these drugs.
“Most opioids misused by patients originate from prescription medication”. The researchers also observed the the data from the national vital statistics on the cause of the death related to these disorders during the same period.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently granted 16 states a total of $20 million to study safe prescribing practices and reduce the availability of prescription opioids, they wrote.
Nation statistics aren’t hopeful either; the rate of drug overdose deaths related to prescription opioids saw a dramatic increase from 4.5 to 7.8 per 100,000 people. Of course an opioid is supposed to make people feel better.
Furthermore, it was noted that the increases classified in the study was in the same occurrence as the increased heroin use and related mortality in the United States. People use opioids for nonmedical reasons at an average of 200 days in a year, which is also 0.5 percent higher compared to 2003. Opioid dependence develops when people use the medication regularly for a period of time, and they can suffer from withdrawal symptoms when asked to stop abruptly.
“The last decade has been a time of rapidly growing numbers of people dying from opioid overdoses”, said Brendan Saloner of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“It offers ways that medical providers use, so that people who use opioids non medically and others, can recognize the signs of an overdose and effectively reverse it with naloxone (a lifesaving opioid overdose drug)”.
“There still are 17 states that don’t cover methadone maintenance” under Medicaid, despite the fact that methadone maintenance has the strongest evidence base of increasing recovery rates, he added.
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However, in the same timeframe, more of those who said they abused prescription narcotics abused them more frequently (0.6 percent in 2003 and 0.9 percent by 2013). “We also need to think about changing the conversation about opioid addiction, which is a chronic relapsing illness, just like diabetes. Referring to drug users as junkies or criminals keeps people with addiction in the shadows and away from getting help”.
