SY15-1 * USA ISSUES ON PRESCRIPTION OPIOIDS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The availability of prescription opioids increased several fold in many countries in the 1990s, leading to increasing rates of diversion, abuse and death related to these drugs. Increasing mortality has prompted thousands of local, state or federal interventions in the US. One intervention is abuse deterrent formulations of prescription opioids. We report rates of abuse and diversion of prescription opioids in the United States before and after the introduction of abuse deterrent formulations. METHOD: The Researched Abuse, Diversion and Addiction Related Services (RADARS(R)) System was created to perform up-to-date surveillance from multiple perspectives. We used all RADARS programs to describe trends in prescription opioids. RESULT: The trends of diversion and abuse after introduction of reformulated oxycodone ER and oxymorphone ER showed marked reductions in abuse cases reported to poison centers, diversion cases in law enforcement and abuse in treatment programs. Deaths associated with poisoning cases have also decreased. Furthermore, the street prices of abuse deterrent products are lower than their crushable versions. CONCLUSION: Oxycodone and oxymorphone tablets that are difficult to crush and solubilize offer one method to reduce abuse of these products. The impact of these new products on overall abuse of prescription opioids is unknown.