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Expert panels and regulatory bodies in many fields emphasize effective pain management, including appropriate use of narcotic analgesics. One result of this emphasis has been an increase in opioid prescriptions; for example, the number of methadone prescriptions rose 13-fold from 1997 to 2007. To determine whether this higher rate of prescribing was associated with risk for unintentional drug poisoning, West Virginia researchers reviewed medical examiner data on all 295 people who died after confirmed unintentional prescription drug overdoses in 2006.
Pharmaceutical diversion (defined as use of a drug without a documented prescription) was associated with 186 deaths (63%). “Doctor shopping” (defined as receiving prescriptions for controlled …