This monograph is based upon papers and discussion from the RAUS Review Conference on pain and analgesia, held January 19 and 20, 1983, in Rockville, Maryland, sponsored by the Office of Science, National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

The papers in this monograph were presented or read by title at the 46th annual scientific meeting of the Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence, Inc., in St. Louis, Missouri, June 4-6, 1984. The CPDD, an independent, nonprofit organization, conducts drug testing and evaluations for academic institutions, government, and industry. Louis S. Harris, the editor of the monograph, is chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.