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Abstract

Developments in Anaesthetics & Pain Management

Addiction and Compliance

  • Open or Close Keith A Raymond*

    Emergency Medicine Physician, Austria

    *Corresponding author: Keith A Raymond, Emergency Medicine Physician, Muckendorf, Austria, Europe

Submission: August 14, 2017;Published: November 02, 2017

DOI: 10.31031/DAPM.2018.01.000502

ISSN 2640-9399
Volume1 Issue1

Abstract

At the end of my clinical hours here in Europe, I met with some patients to discuss current events. They were completely unaware, and even surprised by, the opiate problem in the United States. It certainly is not a problem here in Austria, much less the rest of Europe. In Portugal, where illicit drugs were decriminalized in 2001, the drug overdose death rate was 3 per million in 2015. In the UK during the same year, it was 45 opiate related deaths per million [1]. For 2015, the NIH reported about 100 deaths per million in the US from opioid overdose. This is one overdose death per 5914 opiate prescriptions written in that year. The numbers in the US are worth reflection and appear suspect [2]. This suggests most of these deaths are due to diversion not prescription. To put these numbers in perspective, the number of people that died with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015 was 93,500 vs. opioid related deaths in the same year of 35,000 in the USA [3].

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