Drug policy often comprises efforts to reduce the supply of drugs, expand health and social services to addicted individuals, and prevent addiction in the first place. As the opioid epidemic rages on, with troubling spikes in overdoses and fatalities during the Covid-19 lockdown, a new report from Brookings says there are now new opportunities to focus on prevention.
These measures could include promoting safer opioid prescribing, issuing public health warnings about the dangers of the super powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, and ensuring prescription opioids are locked up and out of the reach of children. The audience for such measures, the report notes, includes prescribers and pharmacists—not just potential users—with the goal of achieving greater control over supply, as most of the opioids that are misused come from legal and regulated distribution. In addition, regions not yet exposed to black market fentanyl should use every tool available to delay its arrival through law enforcement, although this is not a long-term solution.
At the same time the clinicians, patients and pharmacies need nudges and system redesign, not just education, to avoid become unwitting accomplices in the opioid crisis. While the educational component of prevention is important, it will probably remain only modestly effective, mainly because it is mostly adults, rather than adolescents, who initiate opioid use through prescription drugs.