Question 12243 — pharmacy and medications

Summary

Mr. Christophe Arend alerts the Minister of Solidarity and Health to the increase in the consumption of opioid painkillers in France. The opioid crisis, which is ravaging the United States and Canada, could soon reach France. Worldwide, narcotics caused 190,000 premature deaths in 2015, of which opioids bear a heavy responsibility as the leading cause. Their production and consumption is exploding: out of 255 million drug users worldwide, 35 million used these substances during 2015, or 2 million more than the previous year. In the United States alone, painkillers, initially intended for patients with severe pain such as those with cancer, were prescribed so extensively by doctors in the early 2000s that they were included in more than 250 million prescriptions in 2013 In France, experts are alarmed by an increase in prescriptions for strong opioid painkillers (morphine, oxycodone, Fentanyl) and the increase in the number of overdoses. The use of strong opioids more than doubled between 2004 and 2017. Today, 12 million French people are treated each year with an opioid analgesic, including one million with a strong opioid. Oxycodone consumption has increased by 20 in 10 years. Additionally, studies show an increased risk of overdose in patients using psychotropic drugs. However, France is the second largest consumer of anxiolytics in Europe. Faced with these worrying figures and the situation in North America, he asks what preventive measures towards health professionals the Government intends to take to avoid a potential health disaster.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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