National Safety Council (NSC) has released a guide for employers, “The proactive role employers can take: opioids in the workplace,” which
outlines how opioid use or abuse can affect business and best practices in
mitigating the issue.
The guide lists staggering
statistics regarding mounting drug distribution in the U.S.
“Drug
distribution through the pharmaceutical supply chain was the equivalent of 96 mg
of morphine per person in 1997 and approximately 700 mg per person in 2007,”
the report reads. “[This is] an increase of more than 600% and the incidences
of opioid use disorders and abuse have proliferated. Per capita, the U.S. has
one of the highest rates of opioid use in the world.”
The report notes that drug overdoses–chiefly caused by
opioids–have surpassed car crashes as the foremost cause of unintentional death
in the U.S. The number of Americans killed by prescription opioid abuse is more
than total U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War.
The report implores medical providers to avoid prescribing
opioid pain medications whenever possible. NSC posits that non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs are more cost-effective and pose less of a threat of
habit formation or hyperalgesia, an increase in pain sensitivity associated
with long-term opioid usage.
NSC offers a toolkit to help employers optimize
their existing drug policies. Visit nsc.org/rxemployerpolicy.
