How Significant is American’s Misuse of Prescription Medication?

Quest Diagnostics conducted a study between 2011-2016 on adherence of patients prescribed pain medication.  The specimens were tested for both opioids and benzodiazepines for patients prescribed at least 1 drug. With specimens indicating concurrent use of both opioids and benzodiazepines per the Journal of Addiction Medicine 52% were prescribed one of the drug class, the other was non-prescribed. For this group of concurrent use patients with prescribed opioids 19% tested positive for non-prescribed benzodiazepines while 15% of patients with prescription of benzodiazepines tested positive for non-prescribed opioid use.

You can read more about the study at Quest Diagnostics or Journal of Addition Medicine