Barnett ML, et al. - The opioid epidemic has resulted in increased scrutiny of patients prescribed large amounts of controlled substances. States and payers, including commercial insurers and Medicaid programs, have thus taken to levying more stringent restrictions on prescribing opioids, thereby raising concerns that these policies may pressure physicians to discontinue opioid therapy. Due to the physical dependence characteristic of long-term opioid or benzodiazepine use, patients whose therapy is discontinued may consider extreme measures to circumvent withdrawal symptoms. Resarchers thus undertook a study to assess the prescription patterns of family members of high-volume opioid or benzodiazepine users whose therapy has been stopped, and hypothesized that when clinicians discontinue therapy for high-volume users, their family members may be more inclined to obtain prescriptions for these medications to potentially divert those prescriptions to the high-volume user.