Brief of Amici Curiae Professors of Health Law and Policy in Support of Petitioner, Ruan v. United States, No. 20-1410

Realigning Incentives for Novel Pain Therapeutics

“…3 In fact, legal and policy responses have sometimes failed to account for the complexity of the crises-creating additional harms by incentivizing not only opioid prescribing avoidance but avoidance of patients associated with opioids altogether. People with chronic pain, substance use disorder, or both have long been stigmatized and marginalized in healthcare institutions and by healthcare providers for myriad reasons, including fears of criminal prosecution 4 and other legal entanglements involving controlled-substances prescribing. 5 The response to the overdose crisis has left these patients, who number in the tens of millions, 6,7 with fewer providers willing to care for them and those remaining willing providers with fewer therapies in their arsenal.…”