The opioid epidemic and injection drug use: MIPIE and health harms related to the injection of prescription opioids

America ’s 21st century opioid epidemic is distinguished by the high proportion of people using heroin and illicitly-manufactured fentanyl who initiated their opioid use with prescription opioids (POs) that were either prescribed to them or diverted and used for nonmedical reasons (Jones, Logan, Gladden,& Bohm, 2015). Among this new generation of opioid users, many have turned to injection drug use (IDU) as their primary route of drug administration. This transition pattern has contributed to a nationwide increase in the number of people who inject drugs (PWID) (Suryaprasad et al., 2014), with a particularly sharp increase in the number of young people (
Source: International Journal of Drug Policy - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Response Source Type: research