[pavulon]

A lot of the opiate abuse issue can be traced to 2000 when JCAHO made pain the "5th vital sign" and in turn began using pain control as a way to regulate payment to hospitals. While pain control is important (I feel qualified as any to say that), this overstep by this organization (and subsequent oversteps by hospital administrators) let a genie out of its bottle. Patients became hooked on their pain meds and when the prescriptions run out, many look for opiates anywhere they can find them (ie heroin or black market meds). Of course, prescribers are now being pushed the other way by regulators as they try to undo a problem they were forced to create.