Opioid Moderatism and Rapprochement: The Search for a Sane Middle Ground

Few would question the severity of the prescription opioid crisis of the early years of this millennium, the causes of which were myriad. Undoubtedly, society needed to address the crisis in an aggressive manner. Unfortunately, the manner in which the problem was addressed has been a classic example of “overkill,” resulting in a war on opioid analgesia, the patients who require opioid treatment, and the providers who have continued to prescribe. Although many have cast blame on the 2016 CDC Opioid Prescribing Guideline, it was not necessarily the Guideline itself that caused so much suffering, but rather its weaponization. Irrespective, patients have been the “collateral damage” in this war on opioids. This presentation will address the imperative of physicians exercising more thorough and consistent opioid risk mitigation in order to avoid opioid analgesia from becoming further “legislated away,” as well as the imperative of those who are “pro-opioid” and “anti-opioid” to agree on a rational middle ground that is more “pro-patient.”