The roots of the North American opioid crisis, and 3 key strategies for stopping it

published on October 16, 2023 by Rohan Anand and M. Eugenia Socias in The Conversation

The Netflix series Painkiller recently depicted how the over-prescribing of the medicine OxyContin wreaked havoc on American society.

Today the grim reality is that opioid-related deaths in North America reached a record level in 2022, with more than 109,000 fatalities in the United States. The same year in Canada, deaths exceeded 7,400, a number equivalent to 20 opioid-related deaths every day, and this is likely to continue to increase over the coming years.

The opioid overdose crisis has been ongoing for over two decades in Canada and the U.S. The current mortality rate is greater than the worst years of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in these countries.

Opioids are drugs primarily used to treat severe pain, such as after surgery. When prescribed responsibly they are an effective medication, but if over-prescribed or used recreationally they can lead to an addiction (known as opioid use disorder) that can result in overdose death and wider community problems…