There's a newly published study on The Effects of Opioids on Labor Market Outcomes and Use of Social Security Disability Insurance which purports to find that increased opioid use led to both more employment and more disability claims, which is a surprising if not confounding result.
One problem with the study is that the author did not attempt to measure the actual use of opioids. The author measured "marketing payments from opioid manufacturers and distributors to physicians as an instrument to predict opioid prescribing."
I wonder if the study has cause and effect backwards. Wouldn't a population with more disabled people than average be one that an unscrupulous opioid manufacturer would want to target? Aren't disabled people an obvious market for opioids? Don't you intensify sales efforts in a geographic area where your marketing campaign seems to be paying dividends?
