How opioids may end up in the hands of those not prescribed them

Some 1.2 million opioid prescriptions filled in 2016 were to people who had family members who had engaged in “doctor or pharmacy shopping,” a new study of insurance data finds. The “shopping” occurs when one seeks opioids from multiple prescribers and pharmacists in order to avoid detection, and the findings underscore the dangers of overprescribing opioids. Researchers looked at insurance data from more than 550,000 patients, and roughly 1% of the opioid prescriptions were for a person who had a family member who had been to at least four prescribers and pharmacists. This was a conservative estimate, the authors say, indicating that the actual numbers — and therefore the actual risk — of opioids ending up in the hands of those who weren’t necessarily prescribed the medication may be higher.