The Opioid Crisis Isn't What You Think It Is—and It Can't Be Stopped by <em>More</em> Drug War

Summary: Across the country, overdoses and crimes attributed to drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, and fentanyl are up. Heroin, once an exotic and expensive drug, is now widely available and reportedly as cheap as $5 a pop. Politicians, law enforcement, and the medical community are scrambling to respond. Media coverage abounds. What is the reality of the opioid "epidemic," what are its causes, and what are its effects on chronic pain patients, whose demand for prescription drugs is often (and incorrectly) blamed for causing the problem? In this Reason Podcast, I talk with Reason's Zach Weismueller, whose latest documentary follows a pain doctor who is retiring rather than put up with increasing government hassles and surveillance, and Jacob Sullum, a finalist for a National Magazine Award for his article "No Relief in Sight: Torture, despair, agony, and death are the symptoms of 'opiophobia,' a well-documented medical syndrome fed by fear, superstition, and the war on drugs. Doctors suffer the syndrome. Patients suffer the consequences." That story was published way back in 1997, a striking indication of just how long—and how ineffective—the war on pain drugs has been.