Opioid Prescribing Mediating State Policy Intervention Effects on Drug Overdose Mortality

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 70 630 drug overdose deaths for 2019 in the United States, 70.5% of which were opioid-related. Preliminary estimates now warn that drug overdose deaths likely surpassed 86 000 during 2020. Despite a 57.4% decrease in opioid prescribing since a peak in 2012, the opioid death rate has increased 105.8% through 2019, as the share of those deaths involving fentanyl increased from 16.4% to 72.9%. This letter seeks to determine whether the opioid prescribing and mortality paradox is robust to accepted methods of causal policy analysis and if prescribing rates mediate the effects of policy interventions on overdose deaths. Using loge-loge ordinary least squares with three different specifications as sensitivity analyses for all 50 states and Washington, DC for the period 2001-2019, the elasticities from the regressions with all control variables report operational prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) reduce prescribing rates 8.7%, while mandatory PDMPs increase death rates from opioids 16.6%, heroin and fentanyl 19.0%, cocaine 17.3% and all drugs 10.5%. There is also weak evidence that recreational marijuana laws reduce prescribing, increases in prescribing increase pain reliever deaths, pill mill laws increase cocaine deaths, and medical marijuana laws increase total overdose deaths, with demographic variables suggesting states with more male, less non-Hispanic white, and older citizens experience more overdoses. Weak mediation effects were observed for pain reliever, cocaine, and illicit opioid deaths, while broad reductions in prescribing have failed to reduce opioid overdoses.