The Atlantic: The Truth About Painkiller Addiction

Amid an opioid crisis, authorities overestimated the danger of prescription painkillers—while doing too little to identify patients at risk of addiction.

Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/what-america-got-wrong-about-opioid-crisis/595090/

Excerpt:

Did policy makers and public-health experts correctly assess who was at risk of becoming addicted to opioid medications? Were their views on the addictive potential of such drugs realistic? Did they anticipate the consequences of policies devised to constrain doctors from overprescribing? In retrospect, policy makers seriously misjudged the answers to these questions, overestimating the risk that these drugs posed to the average patient while simultaneously doing too little to urge clinicians to identify those most vulnerable to addiction. The best time to correct course is now—while the opioid problem still commands public attention, and before the restrictions imposed at the height of the crisis harden into permanent practice.