The American crackdown on the drugs that kicked off the modern opioid overdose epidemic—prescription opioids—largely succeeded. According to data released by the American Medical Association (AMA) on Sept. 8, opioid prescriptions have dropped in every state over the last decade, plummeting nearly 50% nationally.
The effort to prevent overdose deaths, however, is an abject failure. Annual opioid overdose deaths more than tripled between 2010 and 2020, according to federal data. Drug overdose deaths over a 12-month period surpassed 100,000 for the first time in April 2021, with about 75% of those deaths involving opioids.
Many factors contributed to this, but the fundamental problem is that the evolution of the drug market outpaced efforts to stop drug overdoses. &…