Government Actions to Curb the Opioid Epidemic

To the Editor Drs Kolodny and Frieden outlined steps the government should take to curb the opioid epidemic, such as improving surveillance of prescribers through the use of databases, improving reporting and responses to overdoses, promoting more cautious guidelines for use of narcotics, increasing access and reimbursement for nonopioid and nonpharmacologic management of pain, interrupting supply of heroin and illicitly produced synthetic opioids, increasing access to addiction treatment, and reducing harm to current users. However, they left out the role the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) can play in its ability to block drug manufacturers and drug distributors from shipping suspiciously large narcotic shipments.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research