The problem of pain — can genetics help solve the opioid crisis?

Twenty-seven years ago last January, a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that: “despite widespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”

The letter, just a single paragraph, 99 words, was sent by Hershel Jick of Boston University’s Drug Surveillance Program.

It has subsequently been blamed for legitimizing widespread and reckless use of prescription opioids, leading to an epidemic of addiction.