US health care law is creating an incentive for physicians to prescribe drugs, particulary opiates, that are often abused. From Alice Salles at theantimedia.org:
(ANTIMEDIA) A report released recently by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows one in every 20 Americans misused prescription painkillers last year. This discovery is particularly relevant because the drug war, combined with changes to U.S. health care law, may have helped exacerbate the so-called opioid epidemic.
In 2015, an estimated 119 million Americans older than 12 used prescription psychotherapeutic drugs — a term used in the SAMHSA report to refer to “pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives,” though pain relievers were the most commonly used.
Researchers used that estimate, along with the data gathered from 68,000 surveys to produce the report. According to the report, “[a]ll estimates (e.g., percentages and numbers) presented in the report are derived from NSDUH [National Survey…
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The Grey Enigma 