Racial Trends in Prescription Opioid Use.

• Position: PAIN KULLERS

People of color were less likely to be prescribed opioids in the late 1990s when the drug first became widely available as a pain treatment, maintains a study by researchers at the New York University School of Global Public Health. However, by the mid 2000s, prescription opioid use among black individuals matched that of whites, despite much of the attention and resources of the opioid crisis focusing on white populations.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, illustrate racial disparities in prescribing new drugs--and perhaps even undertreatment, especially for Hispanics who were less likely to take prescription opioids.

Opioids historically were prescribed to treat cancer pain and pain after surgery but, in the late 1990s, several factors led to the growth in their use: pharmaceutical companies' aggressive marketing; increases in chronic pain; campaigns for improving pain management; and the relaxation of prescribing laws.

In 1996, prescription opioid use was higher among whites (11.9%), compared with blacks (9.3%) and Hispanics (9.6%). At that point, whites were slightly more likely to use opioids than nonopioid painkillers, but blacks and Hispanics were much more likely to use nonopioid painkillers.

"In the late '90s, doctors weren't prescribing opioids to people of color with the same frequency that they were...