US anti-opioid abuse push
October 26, 2015
American president Barack
Obama has launched a major
effort to address the country’s
“prescription drug abuse and
heroin epidemic”.
Pharmacy groups have joined the
plan, with CVS expanding a program
which allows the dispensing of
naloxone without an individual
prescription and launching a new
drug abuse prevention program
called Pharmacists Teach, where
CVS pharmacists will address high
school classes across the country.
Rite Aid will train 6,000
pharmacists on naloxone use over
the next year, while the American
Pharmacists Association will
educate pharmacists through a new
Resource Centre on opioid use,
misuse and abuse.
Key initiatives in a Presidential
Memorandum issued last week also
include a requirement for federal
departments and agencies to
provide training on the prescribing
of opioids to all Federal health
care professionals who prescribe
controlled substances.
The memorandum also directs
government organisations that
directly provide, reimburse or
otherwise facilitate access to health
benefits, to conduct a review to
“identify barriers to medicationassisted
treatment for opioid-use
disorders, and develop action plans
to address these barriers”.
Obama said more Americans now
die every year from drug overdoses
than in motor accidents, and the
majority of these overdoses involve
prescription medications.
A range of health professional
organisations have joined the push,
targeting a doubling in the number
of providers that can prescribe
naloxone and buprenorphine over
the next three years.
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