Are the feds clouding a solution to opioid abuse?
According to a recent story by 60 Minutes and the Washington Post, the federal government – notably the DEA and Congress – are part and parcel to the opioid epidemic sweeping the nation and ravaging even our own part of the country.
According to a former DEA official, speaking to CBS, “the opioid crisis was aided in part by Congress, lobbyists and the drug distribution industry.”
Furthermore, according to a CBS analysis and followup to the story, “the DEA says it has taken actions against far fewer opioid distributors under a new law. A Justice Department memo shows 65 doctors, pharmacies and drug companies received suspension orders in 2011. Only six of them have gotten them this year.”
The problem seems to be a revolving door between government figures and the pharmaceutical industry. According to CBSNews.com, “At least 46 investigators, attorneys and supervisors from the DEA, including 32 directly from the division that regulates the drug industry, have been hired by the pharmaceutical industry since the scrutiny on distributors began.”
No wonder there has been no relevant action by the federal government in trying to get a hand on the opioid abuse issue. It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask just whose side federal officials are on. But this 60 Minutes/Washington Post report doesn’t leave much question.
How is this for doubletalk, also from CBSNews.com: “The DEA has issued no suspension orders against a distributor for nearly two years. It says in a statement it will continue to ‘use all the tools at our disposal to combat this epidemic.'”
All tools except suspension orders, it seems. Which means what exactly? Zealously punishing addicts hooked on these deadly drugs by doctors who themselves earn thumbs-up from the federal government?
That’s not a policy to address the problem. That’s a policy to curry favor with the pharmaceutical industry and with irresponsible medical practitioners. Shocking: special interest clout trumps the well-being of the American people.
How serious a problem is opioid abuse? From CBS: “Drug overdose deaths in the United States have more than doubled over the past decade. The CDC says 188,000 people have died from opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2015.”
States and local government need to accept that they alone can address this challenge. The federal government can no more be trusted to solve this problem than it could solve the problems of drug abuse in general, healthcare, violent crime, poverty, etc. Everyday people looking to the federal government for solutions to our problems is fruitless, bordering on delusional.
Ironically, things could change under President Donald Trump. Love him or loathe him, he is a maverick with few of the allegiances previous Republicans and Democrats have for Big Pharma (or pretty much any other special interest group). It would be folly to anticipate him coming up with a solution to this plague. But one would have to be completely delusional to look to standard bearers in either party to offer anything useful in the discussion, based on history.
This plague goes on, but at least we now know with some relative certainty, that the problem has to be addressed by the state and local entities. Typically, Washington isn’t an honest broker.
Add opioid abuse to the lengthy list of social ills advanced by the federal government instead of challenged by the federal government. Another example of politics killing constituents; another example of why the federal government needs to be slashed to the bone and forced to comply with constitutional mandates – and nothing else.