Medication-Assisted Therapies — Tackling the Opioid-Overdose Epidemic

Abstract

T he rate of death from over- doses of prescription opioids in the United States more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2010 (see graph), far exceeding the combined death toll from cocaine and heroin overdoses. 1 In 2010 alone, prescription opioids were involved in 16,651 overdose deaths, whereas heroin was implicated in 3036. Some 82% of the deaths due to prescription An audio interview with Dr.