Opioid Prescriptions Down; Deaths Up, NY Times reports
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/health/opioid-prescriptions-drop-for-first-time-in-two-decades.html?_r=0 (excerpts) "...for each of the past three years — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — prescriptions have declined, a review of several sources of data shows." " IMS Health, an information firm whose data on prescribing is used  throughout the health care industry, found a 12 percent decline in  opioid prescriptions nationally since a peak in 2012. Another data  company, Symphony Health Solutions, reported a drop of about 18 percent  during those years. Opioid prescriptions have fallen in 49 states since  2013, according to IMS, with some of the sharpest decreases coming in  West Virginia, the state considered the center of the opioid epidemic,  and in Texas and Oklahoma. (Only South Dakota showed an increase.)" ... ... One important development that may have helped propel the decline came in 2014, when the federal government tightened prescribing rules  for one of the most c...