Can state medical boards adequately respond to reports that physicians are inappropriately prescribing opioids?

In this issue, Reidenberg and Willis share results of a 2-year study of cases in which physicians were criminally prosecuted for their prescribing of opioids "outside the bounds of proper medical practice."(1) They found that in only two of 32 such cases had a state medical board reviewed the case before indictment. In many of the cases, the authors argue that the prosecutors overreached and that these kinds of cases could be better handled by referral to state medical boards.