Initially lagging behind the United States and other countries that have struggled with opioid epidemics since the late 1990s, Israel has unfortunately caught up in the past decade. Abuse of the drug fentanyl — 50 times stronger than heroin and highly addictive — plays a large role in the public health predicament in which Israel now finds itself.
“The watershed was about 10 years ago, because before that doctors prescribed alternatives and there was less access to opioids. It wasn’t as easy for patients to get them as is it today,” said Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, co-author of the report and the Taub Center’s principal researcher and health policy program chair, as well as head of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s School of Public Health. READ MORE
