Control billions of pills leaving pharmacies?

How do we

The opioid epidemic is getting worse every day. Many efforts and a lot of money have been expended in attempts to solve this terrible problem. But the problem keeps growing as if nothing is being done. To better understand and address this issue we must first establish that there are two somewhat unrelated issues.

One issue is addressing those who have become addicted. These people get their drugs mostly from drug dealers. Law enforcement can work to reduce the availability of drugs on the streets, and treatment facilities can work to rehabilitate those who have become addicted.

But neither can do anything to reduce the steady flow of new addicts. That is because the vast majority of addicts (heroin/fentanyl users) come from a much, much bigger pool of people who use opioid pills casually. These people are not yet addicts so they do not belong in treatment and, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, get their pills almost exclusively from their family and friends (mostly for free) or legitimately from their doctors, not from drug dealers. Therefore, there is no one to arrest.

Most of the pills taken inappropriately start out appropriately prescribed. These pills are not “on the street.” They are in your neighbor’s medicine cabinet. It was good to see that opioid prescribing in Pennsylvania has dropped (Jan. 9, “Opioid Prescribing Drops 12 Percent in Pa., Officials Say”). I suspect these were the easy cuts, but going forward, it will be much harder to reduce the number of prescriptions because there are many who truly need them.

The fundamental problem is that we still have, and will continue to have, billions of pills in the hands of millions of people with absolutely no control. Opioids, on the one hand, are absolutely necessary for alleviating the suffering of humanity, but on the other hand, they are dangerous substances and tricky to use.

We will never get a handle on this opioid crisis until we find a way to control these pills once they have left the pharmacy. ARTHUR DAVID, M.D.

Ben Avon Heights