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Here’s an outstanding, must-read update on the US Opioid Epidemic. It reports that opioid addiction in the United States has reached epidemic proportions, threatening not only public health but economic output and national security.

Source: The U.S. Opioid Epidemic | Council on Foreign Relations

For me, this was a balanced article but it probably didn’t go far enough in looking at the barriers.

Opioids are regular major news, ranking with weather disasters and terrorist attacks in major news outlets. This week, for example, the NYT reported ‘Google Sets Limits on Addiction Treatment Ads, City Safety‘.

The viewpoint on the ‘Opioid Epidemic’ is vastly different, depending upon the stakeholder perspective, including addicts and their families, the $35 Billion addiction treatment industry, the big ‘pharma’ companies, the drug cartels, big corporates, public healthcare, and the political classes.

If you read the Council on Foreign Relations article very carefully, you will perhaps see that the dots are not properly joined up. Clearly, this is a strategic problem affecting public health, economic output and national security, so a strategic solution is required. The initiative has to come from Trump’s administration but so far, he’s seems way behind the curve.

Drug abuse is by far the largest cause of death for America’s under fifties. It particularly hits the white poorly education, unskilled or semi-skilled who have lost job and security opportunities in modern America. Perhaps, part of Trump’s dilemma depends upon who’s got his ear this week, the nationalists or the globalists?

Thoughts?