ArticleDrug and alcohol dependence2016
Effect of a "pill mill" law on opioid prescribing and utilization: The case of Texas.
Article in Drug and alcohol dependence, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Evidence for state, community and systems-level prevention strategies to address the opioid crisis.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2019Pooled it
- A Rapid Review of the Impact of Systems-Level Policies and Interventions on Population-Level Outcomes Related to the Opioid Epidemic, United States and Canada, 2014-2018.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)Pooled it
- Regulating quasi-legal markets: Evidence from pain management clinic laws.Journal of public economics · 2025Article
- What Drives Risky Prescription Opioid Use?: Evidence from Migration.The quarterly journal of economics · 2025Article
- Observational
- Evaluating State-Level Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and Pill Mill Effects on Opioid Consumption in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The effect of pill mill legislation on suicides.Health services research · 2022Article
- Effects of State Opioid Prescribing Laws on Use of Opioid and Other Pain Treatments Among Commercially Insured U.S. Adults.Annals of internal medicine · 2022Article
- The effect of state policies on rates of high-risk prescribing of an initial opioid analgesic.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Article
- Spatiotemporal Analysis of the Association Between Pain Management Clinic Laws and Opioid Prescribing and Overdose Deaths.American journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- The state of the evidence on the association between state cannabis laws and opioid-related outcomes: A review.Current addiction reports · 2021Article
- A New Trade War with an Opium Component: Can the U.S. Opioids Crisis Be Solved by Banning Fentanyl in China?Iranian journal of public health · 2021Article
- Claims-based measures of prescription opioid utilization: A practical guide for researchers.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2021Review
- Systematic Evaluation of State Policy Interventions Targeting the US Opioid Epidemic, 2007-2018.JAMA network open · 2021Article
- Protocol: mixed-methods study of how implementation of US state medical cannabis laws affects treatment of chronic non-cancer pain and adverse opioid outcomes.Implementation science : IS · 2021Article
- State pain management clinic policies and county opioid prescribing: A fixed effects analysis.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2020Article
- Implementation and enforcement of state opioid prescribing laws.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2020Article
- Opioid Prescribing Laws Are Not Associated with Short-term Declines in Prescription Opioid Distribution.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2020Article
- The Association of State Opioid Misuse Prevention Policies With Patient- and Provider-Related Outcomes: A Scoping Review.The Milbank quarterly · 2020Article
- Opioid prescribing patterns among medical providers in the United States, 2003-17: retrospective, observational study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStates have attempted to reduce prescription opioid abuse through strengthening the regulation of pain management clinics; however, the effect of such measures remains unclear. We quantified the impact of Texas's September 2010 "pill mill" law on opioid prescribing and utilization.
methodsWe used the IMS Health LRx LifeLink database to examine anonymized, patient-level pharmacy claims for a closed cohort of individuals filling prescription opioids in Texas between September 2009 and August 2011. Our primary outcomes were derived at a monthly level and included: (1) average morphine equivalent dose (MED) per transaction; (2) aggregate opioid volume; (3) number of opioid prescriptions; and (4) quantity of opioid pills dispensed. We compared observed values with the counterfactual, which we estimated from pre-intervention levels and trends.
resultsTexas's pill mill law was associated with declines in average MED per transaction (-0.57 mg/month, 95% confidence interval [CI] -1.09, -0.057), monthly opioid volume (-9.99 kg/month, CI -12.86, -7.11), monthly number of opioid prescriptions (-12,200 prescriptions/month, CI -15,300, -9,150) and monthly quantity of opioid pills dispensed (-714,000 pills/month, CI -877,000, -550,000). These reductions reflected decreases of 8.1-24.3% across the outcomes at one year compared with the counterfactual, and they were concentrated among prescribers and patients with the highest opioid prescribing and utilization at baseline.
conclusionsFollowing the implementation of Texas's 2010 pill mill law, there were clinically significant reductions in opioid dose, volume, prescriptions and pills dispensed within the state, which were limited to individuals with higher levels of baseline opioid prescribing and utilization.
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