Turn the Tide Opioid Campaign

As part of his Turn the Tide opioid campaign, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has launched TurnTheTideRx.org.  As the digital home of the campaign, the site offers clinicians practical tools, information, and in-the-trenches stories from colleagues offering their insights into the epidemic.

Here are just a few examples of the resources available on the campaign website.  These are pdfs and can be downloaded and printed.

• Checklist for prescribing opioids for chronic pain
• Calculating total daily dose of opioids for safer dosage
• Non-opioid treatments for chronic pain

Join the Movement Here

A few facts on opioid use in the U.S. you can include in your communications:

• As many as 1 in 4 receiving long-term opioid therapy (in primary care settings) struggle with opioid addiction
• Over 249,000,000 prescriptions for opioids were written in 2013—enough for every adult in America to have a bottle of pills
• 300% increase in opioid prescription sales since 1999 — without overall change in reported pain