More opioid marketing may be causing more opioid deaths

Opioid marketing focused on targeting doctors can be linked to an increase in opioid overdoses in the U.S., a study published Friday found.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, say that the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $40 million on marketing opioids to U.S. doctors between 2013 and 2015. Increased opioid marketing by county was associated with a higher overdose mortality rate the following year, the report states.

This is the first study implicating opioid marketing in the opioid crisis, Axios reports, and could be damaging to opioid manufacturers.

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The report states the current marketing efforts could counteract national attempts to curb the opioid crisis, and suggests policymakers may want to consider limiting direct-to-physician opioid marketing.

"Policymakers and state health regulators should prohibit licensed health professionals from accepting any such payments or incentives from the industry," Linda Richter, director of policy analysis and research for the Center on Addiction, told U.S. News and World Report. "Although physicians might believe that industry marketing efforts have no impact on their prescribing choices, a large body of evidence proves otherwise."