With nearly 50,000 drug overdose deaths from opioids last year and an estimated two million Americans addicted, the opioid crisis continues to rage throughout the U.S. This statistic must be contrasted with another: 25 million Americans live with daily chronic pain, for which few treatment options are available apart from opioid medications.
Opioid drugs like morphine and Oxycontin are still held as the gold standard when it comes to relieving pain. But it has become brutally obvious that opioids have dangerous side effects, including physical dependence, addiction and the impaired breathing that too often leads to death from an overdose. Researchers have long been searching for a drug that would relieve pain without such a heavy toll, with few results so far.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/too-good-to-be-true-a-nonaddictive-opioid-without-lethal-side-effects-shows-promise/
