Emerging from the US opioid crisis

Opioid drugs play an important role in treating acute pain, whether post-surgery or in the immediate aftermath of serious trauma. Morphine, its derivatives and various synthetic analogues also have a place in end-of-life care for cancer patients when their pain becomes overwhelming. But in the US there is now a growing crisis of addiction to opioid medications.

The figures are startling. But how did the problem come about? And what is being done to remedy it?