A latest Government-backed study has revealed that overdoses and drug-related deaths are not unusual or uncommon among people who are prescribed opioid drugs by their doctors for chronic pain.

With the findings, there has arisen an urgent need to analyze patients on such prescribed drugs more closely, particularly people who are given medicines like OxyContin, Vicodin, and methadone for long-term use. In addition, there is a need for reassessment of current prescribing practices.

“The threat to patient safety is too great to allow current pain management and opioid prescribing practices to remain as they are”, shares White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Deputy Director A. Thomas McLellan.

Official figures shared by CDC have confirmed that there has been a sharp increase in the number of opioid drugs being prescribed by doctors for patients suffering from non-cancer pain. Methadone prescriptions alone have hiked by over 800% across the US over the past 10 years, and deaths related to methoadone have surged by 7 times.

The state funded study has been published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.