Drug overdose deaths, particularly
those caused by prescription painkillers, declined in Florida after state
policy changes were made, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Their success provides a perfect
example of how drug prevention is not only about school-based programs and
parenting, it’s also about adopting policies that reduce the availability of drugs
and enforcing those policies.
From a New York Times article about
the decline in deaths:
"Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the C.D.C., said the
pattern provided a hopeful example of the effect that policy could have on one of
this country’s most entrenched public health problems, one that takes the lives
of more than 20,000 Americans a year."
“This tells us that policies and enforcement work,” Dr.
Frieden said."
From the CDC's report on the decline in drug-related deaths:
“. . . policy changes in Florida were followed by
declines in the prescribing of drugs, especially those favored by Florida
prescribing dispensers and pain clinics, as well as by declines in overdose
deaths involving those drugs. Florida has reported that approximately 250 pain
clinics were closed by 2013, and the number of high-volume oxycodone dispensing
prescribers declined from 98 in 2010 to 13 in 2012 and zero in 2013. Law
enforcement agencies in Florida also reported that rates of drug diversion
(i.e., channeling of prescription drugs to illicit markets) declined during
2010–2012.
Like the
most effective substance use prevention strategies, Florida took a
multi-pronged approach to preventing drug-related deaths. The approach relied heavily on
policies that reduce access to prescription painkillers and the enforcement of
those policies.
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