Vital Signs: Variation Among States in Prescribing of Opioid Pain Relievers and Benzodiazepines

This issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report features the article “Vital Signs: Variation Among States in Prescribing of Opioid Pain Relievers and Benzodiazepines — United States, 2012”  by Leonard J. Paulozzi, M.D. and Karin A. Mack, Ph.D., with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Jason M. Hockenberry, Ph.D., of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. The authors analyzed 2012 prescription data in the IMS Health commercial prescription database. They sought to identify state rates and variation, with the goal of assessing the potential for improved prescribing of opioid pain . . .