The Opioid Crisis Is Now a Fentanyl Crisis
Sixty percent of U.S. opioid deaths last year involved the potent painkiller. Congress and the White House need to act.
Bad stuff.
Photographer: Ty Wright/Washington Post/Getty Images
America’s opioid crisis has shifted. As Congress and the White House have dawdled, the overdose death toll has continued its steady climb — reaching more than 49,000 in 2017, an increase of nearly 7,000 over the previous year, itself a record-breaker. But the primary agent of death is no longer ordinary prescription painkillers. It’s illicit fentanyl, often mixed with heroin or some other street drug.
This change calls for an equally drastic shift in the effort to prevent opioid deaths. Tighter controls on prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone are no longer enough to limit supply. The U.S. needs a comprehensive and multi-targeted strategy to restrict the importation of illicit fentanyl, and a broader, better-funded push to reduce its demand.