The Opioid/Opiate epidemic is the direct result of highly available, high quality, legal opioids. For the majority of places (i.e. anywhere that isn't a a top 1

The Opioid/Opiate epidemic is the direct result of highly available, high quality, legal opioids. For the majority of places (i.e. anywhere that isn't a a top 10 city or former, now desitute, trade capital with a port like Baltimore) currently in the grasp of this crisis, it all began with the introduction of pharma-industry darlings like oxycontin and other branded opioids. Not only were opioids massively overprescribed for otherwise legitimate purposes, once hooked, anyone could walk into one of several "Pain Clinics" located within a few miles of any population center and get a scrip for a pharma quality fix covered almost entirely by their insurance. Even without insurance, the scrip for a 3 month supply of Lortab I received after an emergency appendectomy was just $100 back in 2009 (thanks to manifacturer rebates!). That's a week's fix for any burgeoning pill junkie willing to do cold water extraction (to remove the acetaminophen) and all for a relative pittance. Allowing mass quantities of high quality opioids onto the market is what caused this issue in the first place. Removing even more barriers to access isn't going to make things any better. In fact, it's guaranteed to make things worse based on the results so far.