AN OVERDOSE OF OVERDOSE DEATHS:

Under that catchy headline the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) calls for heightened "crackdowns on doctor-shopping and unscrupulous 'pill mills'” (June 17). Americans have for decades paid a staggering price for the counter-productive "war on drugs" precisely because of hasty, unfounded, knee-jerk conclusions that doing more of the same will lead to different outcomes. The newspaper offers nothing to suggest the problem of rising overdose rates lies with patients seeking care from a succession of doctors, or with healthcare providers who act "unscrupulously." It seems reasonable to hold proposed solutions in abeyance pending a more thoughtful, evidence-based analysis. It might be, for example, that guaranteeing affordable treatment options for all who want and need them would be vastly more effective than ever more “crackdowns.”