In late August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly unveiled a new “Overdose Prevention Framework” to address the decades-long opioid epidemic. Interestingly, the agency outlined policies that support innovation and promote harm reduction.
Alarmingly, this is the same agency that houses the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) that is actively blocking access to tobacco harm reduction. This hypocrisy in approaching harm reduction must change.
In truth, the FDA’s role in the opioid epidemic ought to be examined closer by policymakers as there is evidence that the FDA’s role in approving and allowing companies to market new opioids led to a surge of prescription pill abuse, or at least the first wave of the epidemic. Further, the FDA also ignored warnings from other federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), that were alarmed by the increases in prescription drug abuse.
Unfortunately, time and time again in America, trying to put a genie back into a bottle is impossible. When reining in prescription opioids American public health agencies created a worse problem: illicit markets of heroin and then eventually fentanyl. Now, a flood of fake pills disguised to look like FDA-approved pills are killing Americans in droves.
While the American opioid epidemic began in the early 2000s, combustible cigarettes had been killing hundreds of thousands of U.S. adults each year for half a century. But it was not until 2009 when the FDA was given authority to regulate tobacco products under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA).
Initially, the TCA seemed like a good thing as it would reduce smoking rates among youth and young adults. It would rein in the “big bad tobacco companies” and ensure that adults were given access to truthful information. Youth would not be exposed to tobacco advertisements, and consumers would be given peace of mind knowing products were subject to strict ingredient standards.
Lindsey Stroud – Townhall – 2022-09-28.
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