Ohio to put new limits on pain meds

COLUMBUS - Ohio plans to put new limits on doctors prescribing painkillers, part of the state’s continuing effort to fight a worsening drug addiction epidemic.

The restrictions include barring doctors from prescribing more than seven days of narcotic pain pills for adults and no more than five days for minors.

Ohio authorities are trying to slow an epidemic that last year killed a record 3,050 Ohioans. Prescription opiates often are the gateway to heroin, and 74 percent of those who died of a drug overdose in 2015 had a previous prescription for a controlled substance, the state said Thursday.

Officials say the new prescribing limits apply to acute pain patients and could reduce the number of addictive pills dispensed in Ohio by 109 million annually. Health care providers can prescribe opiates above the new limits to patients experiencing acute pain, but only if they provide a specific reason in a patient’s medical record. The limits don’t apply to cancer, hospice or addiction patients.

Read more: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/beating-heroin/2017/03/30/ohio-put-new-limits-pain-meds-john-kasich-heroin-opiates/99841382/