Dr. Rachel Levine, Acting Secretary of Health and Physician General of Pennsylvania receives a plaque from Magellan Healthcare during the Western Pennsylvania Opioid Education Conference at the RLA Learning and Conference Center in Cranberry Township on Wednesday.

CRANBERRY TWP — State and federal public health and law enforcement officials were in Cranberry Township on Wednesday, where they spoke about ongoing efforts to curb opioid abuse and overdose deaths in the commonwealth.

The state Department of Health will begin working with doctors and hospitals to reduce prescribing opioids for pain relief and to get overdose patients into treatment programs.

Dr. Rachel Levine, acting secretary of health and physician general, outlined the state's latest efforts in the battle against overdose deaths at the Western Pennsylvania Opioid Education Conference at the Regional Learning Alliance Learning and Conference Center in the township Wednesday.

“We have been overprescribing opioids for relatively minor pain,” Levine said. “We have to learn to use opioids more carefully; more judiciously.”

Opioids are needed for treatment of post surgery pain, cancer treatment pain and other medical issues, she said.

However, a prescription for 30 days worth of opioids can be too much because addiction can occur after taking the drug for as few as five days, Levine said.

She compared opioids to antibiotics, saying overuse led to viruses becoming significantly resistant to the medication.

“People develop a tolerance of opioids,” Levine said. That tolerance leads to patients seeking more of the drug, she said.

A full report appears in the Wednesday Butler Eagle.