HHS launches multi-pronged effort to combat opioid abuse

HHS launches multi-pronged effort to combat opioid abuse

July 27, 2015

By: Jim Macrae, Acting Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Pam Hyde, Administrator, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Andy Slavitt, Acting Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

The opioid crisis is affecting communities across the country. Deaths from drug overdose have risen steadily over the past two decades and have become the leading cause of injury death in the United States. Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics—a class of prescription drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine and methadone used to treat both acute and chronic pain—have increasingly been implicated in drug overdose deaths over the last decade. From 1999 to 2013, the rate for drug poisoning deaths involving opioid analgesics nearly quadrupled. Deaths related to heroin have also increased sharply since 2010, with a 39 percent increase between 2012 and 2013. Given these alarming trends, it is time for a smart and sustainable response to prevent opioid abuse and overdose and to treat people with opioid use disorder.

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