The Opioid Crisis, A Solution

In 2013 there were enough prescriptions written for every single adult in America to have a bottle of pills. In a Time article from October 16, 2016 the former surgeon general Vivek Murthy says there are several strategies that will work to end our opioid epidemic. His solutions includes getting Naloxone into the hands of families and first responders. Other key points, training health care providers on how to treat pain and to ensure pain management alternatives are covered by insurance. Importantly, in the 1990's when the medical community acknowledges pain was not treated adequately, the pendulum swung too far in the other direction of prescribing opioids. Now in the late twenty teens, we know opioids are addictive. Addiction is not a moral failing, it's a chronic illness.

Click here to read the full article By Vivek Murthy at Time.com from October 13, 2016