Opioids kill patients more frequently than any other medication used for nonfatal conditions,1 yet disturbing statistics reveal more than one-third of American adults were prescribed these dangerous drugs in 2015.2 Even more shocking, opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.3

More than half of all opioid prescriptions in the U.S. are also issued to patients suffering from anxiety and depression,4 despite the fact that this increases their risk for addiction. Overall, studies show addiction affects about 26 percent of those using opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.5

While back pain is one of the most common reasons for receiving a prescription for a narcotic pain reliever,6 a surprising number of people — especially teens and young adults — receive these potent drugs from their dentist. Women are also increasingly being prescribed opioids during pregnancy and after delivery,7 creating addicts in the womb and destroying families by creating drug-dependent mothers and infants.

Of the 1.1 million pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid in 2007, nearly one-quarter of them filled a prescription for an opioid drug.8 Not surprisingly, statistics9 reveal a disconcerting rise in neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Between 2000 and 2009, the prevalence of NAS increased from 1.2 to nearly 3.4 per 1,000 live births.

1 in 3 American Adults Prescribed Opioids Every Year! 

According to Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland, 38 percent of adults (about 92 million people) in the U.S. were prescribed an opioid drug in 2015.10,11,12,13 Women, people over the age of 49 and those without college degrees were most likely to receive a prescription, and the unemployed, uninsured and adults with an annual family income below $50,000 had the highest prevalence of opioid misuse and addiction.

An estimated 5 percent of adults (11.5 million people) misused the drugs, and nearly 1 percent (some 1.9 million people) reported addiction. Interestingly, while women are prescribed opioids more frequently than men, men have a higher rate of misuse — 13 percent compared to 9 percent respectively. Of those misusing the drug:

• 41 percent reported getting leftover medication from family or friends14,15

• 64 percent said their use of the drug was motivated by need for physical pain relief

• 11 percent said they took the pills to relax or get high

According to Compton:16

“Overall, the results indicate that the medical profession is doing a poor job of appropriately prescribing opioid painkillers. Even though the rates have leveled off, we have a long way to go in improving medical care so these are not as overprescribed as they are currently … [T]here are a lot of leftover medications. In many cases, physicians could write smaller prescriptions, or avoid them completely for those who benefit from ibuprofen or acetaminophen.”

Nearly 70,000 Physicians Were PAID to Prescribe Opioids

A recent paper17 hints at one of the reasons why opioids are still so vastly overprescribed. Between 2013 and 2015 alone, 68,177 physicians received in excess of $46 million in payments from drug companies marketing narcotic pain relievers.18 In all, that amounts to 1 out of every 12 doctors in the U.S. As noted by pediatrician Scott Hadland, who led the study, “The next step is to understand these links between payments and prescribing practices and overdose deaths.”