As Americans continue to die from drug overdoses at an increasing rate, policy makers are seeking interventions to reduce reckless medical practices that put patients in danger of addiction. Many of these proposed laws seek to limit the extent to which patients can access prescription opioids from their physicians. But as our new study, published this week in the Yale Law & Policy Review Inter Alia, argues, prescription opioids are not to blame for today's crisis.
Laws that arbitrarily set duration or quantity restrictions for opioid treatment regimens are premised on the belief that increased access to prescription opioids has led to an increase in addiction and, ultimately, overdose deaths.
