Shifting Focus: From the Opioid Crisis to Quality Pain Management

<p>Damaging State Legislation Regarding Opioids: The Need To Scrutinize Sources Of Inaccurate Information Provided To Lawmakers</p>

“…The author opined that “there is growing evidence that new opioid users, who previously used opioid drugs as their entry into opioid use, are now increasingly being introduced to opioids by using the more easily accessible heroin as their first exposure to an opioid” (p. 1322). Numerous others have recently analyzed the data and reached the same conclusion,30,50–54 and have posited that restrictive opioid prescribing laws are related to the unintended consequence of broader demand for and use of far deadlier illicit fentanyl and its analogues. The rationale used to justify the Arizona law is rife with even more outdated and accordingly invalid data, such as its assertion that opioid prescribing rates for adolescents doubled between 1994 and 2007.…”

“…This group of supporters has not been uncomfortable in noting that many of those in opposition to the Guideline have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, thereby only thinly veiling accusations of ethical impropriety 25–27. Perhaps the most thoughtful analysts of the document have taken a more nuanced view, citing both its strengths and weakness 28–30. Accordingly, it has been suggested that the Guideline per se has not caused the deterioration of the quality of pain medicine in the United States, but rather its misapplication or “weaponization” has been responsible for such 31–35.…”