San Diego Criminal Lawyers Blog
When you are in pain, you want relief — period. For many, that means turning to opioids, and in some cases, patients ask for additional prescriptions down the road. And as we all know, sometimes people get addicted, and the outcomes are horrible. Prescribing doctors have been blamed for the opioid crisis for years now, but the U. S. Supreme Court recently found that it is time to reconsider where that blame is placed.
The Very Real Drug Crisis
The number of deaths related to drug overdoses has been rising steadily for decades, with well over 80,000 fatalities related to both prescription and illicit opioids in 2021, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Roughly eight in ten heroin users say they previously used prescription opioids, indicating that the first step to addiction often occurs with a prescription. The link between prescriptions and illegal drug use is palpable; heroin, which is similar chemically to prescription opioids, is simply cheaper and easier to obtain than prescriptions are in many cases. Undoubtedly, the misuse of opioid prescriptions—taking them in ways other than prescribed, taking the medications that were prescribed to someone else, or taking medications just to get high rather than for the intended purpose—is definitely one factor that leads to the use of heroin or other illicit drugs.