The overdose crisis continues to devastate the nation, with almost 100,000 provisional drug overdose deaths being reported in the United States in the last 12 months.

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According to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), yearly drug overdose deaths more than doubled between 2015 and 2023, when numbers hit a peak of about 112,000 reported deaths. Now in 2024, graphs of overdose death numbers show a steep decline. But while trends appear more hopeful than before, the US is nowhere close to being out of the danger zone.

While various medications can be responsible for drug overdoses, many people who die from drug overdoses die from using opioids, and/or developing opioid use disorder (OUD). Some people who develop OUD may have purchased drugs illegally from elicit sellers, or have first experienced opioids through a doctor’s prescription—such as prescribed pain medication. Other people who develop OUD may have also been exposed to opioids through another person’s prescription—such as a family member or friend who has the medication in their household.

To bring overdose rates down even further, some experts stress the urgency of securing prescription opioids in households—and making sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. They encourage doctors like yourself to inform patients of the importance of keeping their medications away from other household members, like children, and properly disposing of any prescription medications they are no longer using. 

“While a person is actively using doctor-prescribed medications, it’s important to keep them secure, use them as described, and get rid of unused pills or expired medications quickly and safely,” says Ron McCullough, PhD, MBA, the senior vice president of clinical operations at SOLVD Health, a health tech company focused on disease prevention and on making health information accessible to patients. “More often than not, people are using their medications as instructed by their healthcare provider, but for a small portion of the population, it can lead to misuse or a substance use disorder, with potentially life-threatening implications.”

Dr. McCullough encourages people to educate themselves—and spread the word to others—about initiatives like the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Prescription Drug Take Back Day, an event that happens two times a year and helps people appropriately discard prescription medication that they no longer need.

Prescription Drug Takeback Day took place,on October 26. On the day, patients can drop off unused prescription drugs at collection sites at participating law enforcement agencies. If you’re not sure who is participating near you, the DEA has a collection site finder where you can search for a local site. You can also use the DEA search to locate collection sites that are operating year-round, and not just on the collection day—and it could be a good idea to tell your patients to do the same.

“We need broader awareness of the fact that the odds of opioid-related overdose increased by 60% when another household member had an opioid fill in the past 6 months,” Dr. McCullough says, pointing to a study in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction.

Hendricks MA, Ibrahimi SE, Ritter GA, et al. Association of household opioid availability with opioid overdose. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(3):e233385-e233385.

“If we reduce the number of prescriptions issued with better patient education about pain management options and safe use, unintended access to opioids may also decline.”

In addition to securing prescription opioids in the household, it can be important for doctors and patients to be aware of the individual risks of OUD. There’s no foolproof way to predict who will and won’t be at risk for OUD if taking prescription opioids—and developing OUD is not a patient’s fault. However, researchers are learning more about genetic factors that may increase the risk for OUD.  

SOLVD recently developed a DNA test—known as AvertD—to assess whether or not certain patients have genetic factors that put them at an elevated risk of developing OUD. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2023, AvertD is the first FDA-approved test of its kind. In its approval of AvertD, the FDA wrote that AvertD comes with some risks, such as the chance of producing false negatives or positive results, which could give patients an undue sense of fear or safety about their risk for OUD. 

Still, the FDA added that these risks come with any in vitro diagnostic test and that the “opioid crisis, one of the most profound public health issues facing the United States, calls for innovative measures to prevent, diagnose and treat opioid use disorder, including to assess the risk of developing the disorder.”

Being more aware of a patient’s genetic risk for OUD may help patients and doctors advocate for better care and appropriate safeguards if opioids need to be prescribed.