Answer:
Opioid addiction is a disease that involves compulsive drug-seeking, even when
there may be negative consequences. It's not a moral weakness. It's a chronic disease in which people
develop a pattern of using opioids that can lead to clinically significant impairment or distress.
Some of the most commonly abused opioids include hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, and heroin.
Fact:
Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the US, with 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in
2015. Opioid addiction is driving this epidemic, with 20,101 overdose deaths related to prescription
pain relievers, and 12,990 overdose deaths related to heroin in 2015.
Answer:
Women are more likely to have chronic pain, be prescribed prescription pain
relievers, be given higher doses, and use them for longer time periods than men. Women may become
dependent on prescription pain relievers more quickly than men. 48,000 women died of prescription pain
reliever overdoses between 1999 and 2010.
Fact:
The opioid epidemic began in the 1990s with over-prescription of powerful opioid pain relievers. They
quickly became the most prescribed class of medications in the United States, exceeding antibiotics
and heart medication.
In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients
would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers. But the facts are that 20 to 30
percent of patients who are prescribed opioids for chronic pain will misuse them. About 80 percent of
people who use heroin began by first misusing prescription opioids
