BACKGROUND Prescription opioid (RxO) abuse, dependence and misuse is a significant and growing problem in the US, and is associated with a substantial economic burden. Such abuse may be reduced by theoretical formulations that minimize the possibility of abuse, dependence and misuse of RxOs by injection, snorting, crushing or chewing. As well as public health and safety benefits, use of an abus...

Use of multiple prescribers and pharmacies is a means by which some individuals misuse opioids. Community characteristics may be important determinants of the likelihood of this phenomenon independent of individual-level factors. This was a retrospective cohort study with individual-level data derived from California's statewide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) and county-level socio...

OBJECTIVE: Drug misuse in pregnancy is associated with impaired infant visual development. Pilot data showed abnormal flash visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in neonates exposed to methadone in utero, but results were confounded by intrauterine growth restriction, gestation, and ongoing drug misuse. This large cohort study aimed to clarify the effects on neonatal flash VEPs of maternal drug misus...

Leftover PrescriptionOpioids AfterMinor Procedures: AnUnwitting Source for Accidental Overdose in Children Increasing rates of opioid misuse, adverse events, and deaths from opioids have paralleled prescription patterns,1 suggesting that physician efforts to alleviate pain have contributed to this public health crisis. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to prescription opioid ...

BACKGROUND Dramatic increases in the prescriptive use of opioid analgesics during the past two decades have been paralleled by alarming increases in rates of the abuse and intentional misuse of these drugs. We examined recent trends in the abuse and misuse and associated fatal outcomes among older adults (60+ years) and compared these to trends among younger adults (20-59 years). METHODS Tren...

BACKGROUND Benzodiazepines (BZD) misuse is a serious public health problem, especially among opiate-dependent patients with anxiety enrolled in methadone program because it puts patients at higher risk of life-threatening multiple drug overdoses. Both elevated anxiety and BZD misuse increase the risk for ex-addicts to relapse. However, there is no recent study to assess how serious the problem ...