Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9830

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Ballantyne JC.
Regulation of opioid prescribing
BMJ 2007 Apr 21; 334:(7598):811
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7598/811

Abstract:

Over-regulation compromises doctors’ ability to treat pain

Long before the discovery of endogenous opioid systems, opium was used to produce insensibility and relieve pain. Societies began regulating opiates when the availability and use of opiate drugs reached a level that made opiate addiction a problem to society. In the United Kingdom and the United States this was at the beginning of the 20th century, with the Drug Enforcement Act in the UK (1920) and the Harrison Act in the US (1918). Before regulations, opiates were widely available in chemist shops, doctors’ surgeries, and opium dens, and the choice of use was entirely up to the individual, with the risk of addiction being understood. None the less, a stigma was attached to the use of opiates, even therapeutically, but nothing like that seen after regulations made the use of opiates, other than by prescription, a criminal offence. Once these regulations were introduced, a hugely profitable illicit trade in . . .