Tom Tangen’s letter (“Prevent a problem before it grows,” Our Readers’ Views, April 6) asks why there are so many overdose deaths due to fentanyl. There are two major reasons for this. The first is pretty widely known; compulsive substance misuse is a reaction to psychological trauma, typically experienced when one was a child. The second however, should outrage us all. It’s the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA inexplicably has been reducing the supply of legal opioids for years now, as anesthesiologist Dr. Shravani Durbhakula pointed out in a recent New York Times op-ed (“The D.E.A. needs to stay out of medicine,” March 22). Quoting the article, “Since 2015, the D.E.A. has decreased manufacturing quotas for oxycodone by more than 60 percent and for hydrocodone by about 72 percent. Despite thousands of public comments from concerned stakeholders, the agency has finalized even more reductions throughout 2024 for these drugs and other commonly prescribed prescription opioids.”
I can attest from personal experience with recent surgeries that getting pain medication prior to surgery is maddening to the point where it’s inevitable that some will be driven to seek illicit sources of pain relief, and clearly this benefits both drug traffickers and the DEA.
