EXCESSIVE AVAILABILITY OF OPIOID AGENTS In recent years, the availability of prescription opioid medications has increased dramatically, as opioid agents have become popular tor the treatment of chronic nonmalignant pain; specifically, sales of opioid agents have increased more than 300 "o since 1999 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014b; Mars, Bourgois Karandinos, Montero, & Ciccarone, 2014). The CDC released a bulletin stating: "Health care pro viders wrote 259 million prescrip tions for painkillers in 2012 enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills" (CDC, 2014b, para 2) Not only have opioid prescriptions in- creased among the U.S. population in general, but the prescribing rates for opioid agents have also approximately