Go to your GP with an ailment or illness and chances are you will eventually be prescribed an opioid.

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Patients with anxiety, drug dependency, back pain, and worse, are frequently offered opioids if they say they have already tried paracetamol or aspirin to no effect.

New data released from the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) on dependency-forming medicines showed 9.78 million opioids were prescribed in just three months, between October 2025 and December 2025 last year. That’s around 40 million opioids prescribed per year at a cost of around £260 million. If you factor in 90 million antidepressants as well, the sums are staggering.

The UK is in the grip of a massive opioid crisis and the government must get serious about tackling it.

Opioids are considered some of the strongest painkillers available and are used to treat pain after surgery, injury, cancer and chronic pain. Morphine, methadone, fentanyl, tramadol, codeine and more, are regularly dished out with little thought or discussion about the long-term repercussions.

As a psychiatric nurse at some of the country’s leading high-security hospitals, including Broadmoor, and as an NHS manager, I have seen the untold damage opioids do.

Opioid-related deaths represent the largest proportion of drug-related deaths in the UK. In 2025, there were 5565 drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales, with around half of these registered as opioid deaths.

Opioids are incredibly addictive. Just under half of all adults in substance misuse treatment during ‘24–25 were treated for opiate issues and 73 percent of these were men.

There are also serious side effects to opiods, such as dizziness, sickness, constipation, rashes and confusion. When patients do manage to stop taking them, the withdrawals can be truly horrible – and can last weeks or even months.

Then there's the overdosing, both unintentional and intentional. Some people can’t handle the side effects and suicides are extremely high.

The government has said it will act to reduce these shocking numbers, but they stay the same, year-after-year.

So, what can be done? Firstly, opioids shouldn’t be so easily accessed and prescribed by GPs. Secondly, patients should be given access to their own alternative therapy treatments. Medical cannabis, for instance, can help with pain relief, without the addiction or side effects. Sadly, there is still a stigma around it, stemming from a lack of education and understanding, but this is evolving all the time.

Thirdly, there is also a range of different treatment options available for opioid addiction, with many holistic approaches showing amazing progress.

In a 2017 report, the Care Quality Commission recognised that opioid-related deaths were the third most common cause of preventable death for 15-49-year-olds, asking that treatment be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. Sadly, nothing has changed.

People who see the issues day in, day out, are simply asking that patients get the right to choose their own health care and not have to jump through hoops to access it privately or on the NHS.

Opioids shouldn’t be the only option. It’s time for a serious conversation about the opioid crisis – and maybe then we will finally see these horrific statistics change for the better.

Graham Woodward spent three decades in the medical profession, working as a psychiatric nurse and NHS manager and is currently chief medical officer for medical cannabis company Releaf.

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