NomadicMedic
I know a guy who knows a guy.
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Opioid abuse has become a massive problem, but not every problem - no matter how large - is best addressed by the federal government.
Any regulatory action that makes it more difficult for opioid abusers to obtain opioids will also make it more difficult for people who need opioids to obtain them, as well. In fact, this is already a well-documented problem. Imagine having chronic, debilitating pain - or even acute pain - but living in an area where many physicians simply refuse to prescribe opioids because the legal risks are too great.
Some of the strategies that can be used for minimizing opioid prescriptions were outlined in the linked article. But those are issues for the medical community to deal with, not federal regulatory agencies. Frankly, I see little role here for federal governmental involvement at all, aside from stepping out of the way in terms of the development of new pharmaceutical modalities of managing both pain and addiction.
As with everything else (drugs, guns, prostitutes, etc.), people who want this stuff will still get it, or they'll substituted something entirely different but just as dangerous. That's actually exactly how we got here in the first place - a really good argument can be made that our prescription opioid abuse problem is largely a result of our idiotic prohibition of other, less harmful drugs.
More regulation of legally-produced opioids will harm legitimate patients, and will only provide the impetus for increased availability of illegally-produced opioids, which is already a growing part of this issue. Continuing to double down on failed approaches is just stupid. Prohibition has never worked, and it usually makes things worse.
While I don't entirely disagree with you, I will on one point specifically. I believe that there is a role for the feds here. The feds are more likely to be able to address the problem from an interstate commerce angle more quickly than the states could go about thinking up 50 different responses to regulatory compliance.