Opioid abuse has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. This has raised the awareness of opioid abuse as a public health issue. Several states have increased funding for treatment of opioid dependence to combat the trends of increased abuse and overdose deaths [1, 80]. However, there...
The present opioid epidemic in the United States is a significant cause for concern in healthcare. In 1995, the concept of pain was introduced as the fifth vital sign. Since then, the sales of opioids have increased dramatically, as have the number of opioid deaths. The misuse and diversion...
PubMed was searched for relevant publications by using the search terms “Opioid crisis” OR“Opioid epidemic” OR“Opioid regulation”. For this Pubmed search, I excluded research before 1990 and articles published in languages other than English. To maximize discovery of eligible articles, the ...