Author Interviews, NEJM, NIH, Opiods / 14.01.2016
Prescription Opioids And Heroin Crisis Overlap in Important Ways
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Wilson M. Compton, M.D., M.P.E.
Deputy Director
National Institute on Drug Abuse
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Compton: Deaths related to opioids (from both prescription pain killers and street drugs, like heroin) have dramatically increased in the past 15 years. How these different types of opioids are related to each other is important because the pain killers ultimately are derived from prescriptions written by health care providers and street drugs, like heroin, are from illegal sources. The different types of opioids vary in there source but are quite similar in their effects in the brain. Given the different sources, interventions to reduce availability vary across the two categories. There is also a concern that interventions to reduce the availability of prescription opioids may be encouraging people to switch to heroin. That’s the main question addressed in this review.
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