BACKGROUND Antihypertensive medications are widely prescribed by doctors and heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. Despite strong evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of thiazide diuretics, trends in both promotion and prescription of antihypertensive drugs favour newer, less cost-effective agents. Observational evidence shows correlations between exposure to pharmace...

The crisis of opioid addiction in America has been fueled by the diversion of prescription pain pills and the emergence of pure and inexpensive heroin. Until recently, benefits of and access to therapy were limited. This situation changed in 2003 with Food and Drug Administration approval of buprenorphine for the office-based treatment of opioid dependence. Now armed with a potent drug, primary...

There has been a concerted effort by public health, regulatory, and professional groups to curtail the serious problem of prescription opioid-related misuse that emerged during the last decade. The nature of this problem was fully explicated in a recent Pain Medicine Supplement [1], and the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) has been engaged with several agencies, including the United Sta...

Increases in physician office visits involving the use or prescribing of a drug were observed between 1985 and 1999 using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. The prescription rate increased from 109 to 146 prescriptions per 100 visits. Growth in drug mention rates for specific therapeutic classes varied by patients' age. The rate of multiple prescriptions per visit rose 39 pe...

BACKGROUND Taiwan has separated drug prescribing and drug dispensing services since 1997. Because of this, patients with chronic illness as well as those with diseases that have a relatively stable status may have their prescriptions refilled in nearby clinic pharmacies without having to go to hospitals. METHODS Shuang-Ho Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, implemented a drive-through pharmacy servic...

OBJECTIVE Prescription drug diversion involves the unlawful channeling of regulated pharmaceuticals from legal sources to the illicit marketplace, and can occur along all points in the drug delivery process, from the original manufacturing site to the wholesale distributor, the physician's office, the retail pharmacy, or the patient. However, empirical data on diversion are limited. METHOD In...