The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new guidelines for doctors on responsibly prescribing painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin bring important additional attention to the opioid crisis gripping our nation. The CDC's reason for issuing these guidelines is clear – almost 29,000 people fatally overdosed on prescription opiates or heroin in 2014 – and addiction continues to be a growing problem in communities across the United States.
When these drugs came on the market two decades ago, doctors understood them to be safe for treating pain. Opioid painkillers soon became the most commonly prescribed medications in the country; prescriptions have quadrupled since 1999. In just the past month, according to the CDC, 4 million people abused painkillers. As CDC Director Tom Frieden and Debra Houry, director of the agency's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, wrote recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, "We know of no other medication routinely used for a nonfatal condition that kills patients so frequently."
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