The Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic: Incidence, Treatment, Prevention, and Policy

This overview of prescription drug abuse includes historical background, key concepts, and discussion of the prevalence of drug abuse, treatments, and policy issues implicated in ending the epidemic.

Prescription opioid medication abuse has been declared a national crisis by experts in medicine, substance use, public health, and pain management, culminating in a declaration made by the President of the United States that opioid misuse and abuse is a national health emergency. In this comprehensive text, expert scholars analyze and address a wide range of issues in, obstacles to, and potential solutions for this emergency, which caused more than 50,000 deaths in 2016 alone. It covers a variety of topics related to prescription misuse from both clinical and academic perspectives.

After an opening containing background material on the most commonly misused medications, chapters examine subgroups engaged in misuse and special medical environments where misuse issues are key. They then cover U.S. policy, perspectives outside the U.S., and theories that may explain the misuse phenomena. This book will serve as a resource for students and professionals in fields related to prescription drug abuse―including psychology, sociology, medicine, and public policy―and is accessible to individuals not trained in these fields.

• Zooms in on legal and policy issues related to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the U.S., providing insight into current and potential actions to limit the epidemic

• Describes each prescription drug among the most commonly abused, for what it is prescribed, how it works, economic cost, and the damage that abuse of the drug may cause to both individual health and social wellbeing

• Identifies each of the most common groups of people who abuse prescription drugs, their motivations for doing so, and the special risks for each

• Addresses commonly co-abused drugs and the risks of using them concurrently

• Includes comparative text examining prescription drug abuse in Canada and the United Kingdom