An Overview of Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse: Defining the Problem and Seeking Solutions

Each year, millions of individuals in the United States are treated for a variety of serious medical conditions with prescription drugs whose therapeutic benefits are well known. The vast majority of these medications are used to treat medical and psychiatric illnesses. Generally, they are used as prescribed, and contribute to a better quality of life for persons suffering from debilitating or life-threatening disorders. The fact that a small portion of these medications is diverted by those who seek their psychoactive effects raises the important policy issue: how to make drugs easily available for medical use while limiting access for purposes of abuse. Such a responsibility poses challenges very different from those of the so-called “war” on illicit drugs, because this control must be achieved without impeding patients’ access to medical care. A rational public policy would attempt to achieve a balance between the need to minimize abuse and the need to provide relief.