By Pat Anson, Editor

Many primary care physicians -- the top prescribers of opioid pain medication in the United States – lack a basic understanding of how the drugs can lead to abuse and addiction, according to a new survey by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The survey was conducted by several longtime critics of opioid prescribing practices who advocate tighter restrictions on painkillers.

The survey of over 500 practicing internists, family physicians, and general practitioners was conducted by mail in early 2014. Primary care physicians treat over half of the chronic pain patients in the U.S. and prescribe most of the pain medication.

The survey results, reported in the Clinical Journal of Pain, found that nearly half the physicians incorrectly believe that abuse-deterrent pills – which are harder to crush or liquefy for snorting or injecting – are less addictive than their standard counterparts. .

"Physicians and patients may mistakenly view these medicines as safe in one form and dangerous in another, but these products are addictive no matter how you take them," says study leader G. Caleb Alexander, MD, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Epidemiology and co-director of the school's Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness.

“Opioids serve an important role in the treatment of some patients. However, our findings highlight the importance of patient and provider education regarding what abuse-deterrent products can and cannot do. When it comes to the opioid epidemic, we must be cautious about overreliance on technological fixes for what is first and foremost a problem of overprescribing."

Every primary care physician who was surveyed thought that prescription drug abuse was a problem in their communities. Large majorities also supported efforts to reduce abuse, including patient contracts, urine drug testing, databases that monitor opioid prescribing, and greater restrictions on the marketing and promotion of opioids.

About a third of the doctors incorrectly reported that the most common route of prescription drug abuse is by means other than swallowing pills. Numerous studies have shown that most drug abuse is through oral ingestion, followed by snorting and injection.

Interestingly, one third of the physicians (33%) believed that efforts to reduce opioid abuse have had a chilling effect on pain management practices, and were preventing legitimate pain patients from gaining access to appropriate treatment.

Despite that finding, Alexander said further efforts are needed to combat opioid abuse, saying “doctors continue to overestimate the effectiveness of prescription pain medications and underestimate their risks.”

"For the sake of making a dent in an epidemic of injuries and deaths, we have to find ways to make changes. Too many lives are at stake to stick with the status quo," he said.

Two of the co-authors of the study are Andrew Kolodny, MD, and Stefan Kruszewski, MD. Kolodny is president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, a group that has lobbied Congress and petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to limit access to opioids. Kruszewski has served as an expert witness in multiple lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.

Their research was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Public Health Law Research Program and the Lipitz Public Health Policy Award at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The Centers for Disease Control says over 16,000 Americans die annually from painkiller overdoses, an estimate that dates back to 2010. Most of those deaths also involved alcohol or other drugs.

Several recent studies suggest the tide of opioid abuse has turned in the U.S.

Dispensing of opioid pain medication and painkiller overdoses have declined substantially since 2010, according to a recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The number of prescriptions filled in the U.S. for hydrocodone has also declined, the first concrete evidence that restrictions on hydrocodone prescribing that were adopted in 2014 are starting to have an impact. Hydrocodone is no longer the most widely filled prescription in the U.S.

The National Institutes of Health estimates that only about 5 percent of pain patients become addicted to opioids after using them as directed for a year.