Tighter government restrictions on prescribing painkillers such as Vicodin led to a “rapid decline” in prescriptions, a new study found.
In October 2014, the Drug Enforcement Agency ruled that hydrocodone combination products for easing pain should have tighter restrictions. The painkiller was moved from a Schedule III controlled substance to the more restrictive Schedule II, which prohibits prescription refills.
A study published Monday in the Journal of American Medical Association Internal Medicine found that in the year since the change, dispensed hydrocodone prescriptions declined by 22 percent from the year before.
That led to 26 million fewer prescriptions for the painkillers, the study said.
In contrast, prescriptions for combination products without hydrocodone increased by nearly 5 percent.
The researchers looked at prescription data from research firm IMS Health’s National Prescription Audit, which estimates the number of prescriptions doled out by U.S. pharmacies.
Examples of hydrocodone combination products are Vicodin and Lortab.
About 44 Americans die each year from painkiller overdoses, according to public health agencies. The rate of heroin overdose deaths has nearly quadrupled from 2002 to 2013, with more than 8,200 deaths in 2013 alone. Opiods are considered a gateway drug for heroin use.
The study says a lot of action has been taken in the past several years to address the opioid epidemic and some may have resulted in the decline of prescriptions.
However, the abrupt change that occurred immediately after rescheduling “suggests a primary role for this intervention,” the study said.
