Here's how to "fix" the opioid crisis, through healthcare and rehabilitation not criminalization.<p>When a person gets hooked on opioids, never cut them off cold turkey. At the end of a surgery/injury/treatment with prescribed opioids for pain, our current system makes users go from regularly used/available to not at all, or once addiction is noticed then access ended immediately. This is the root cause of the problem, from there people go out and get street opioids, sometimes heroin and sometimes it is cheapened by fentanyl where you get a few specs of it and you OD. Basically, the cutting off of the user access to the drug from regularly available to none is the MAJOR problem here.<p>What we need to do is this, taper people off if possible, if not then why not let them continue to get them until they can ween themselves off through rehab. Basically all opioid patients can get them as long as they need but it switches from the doctor to a healthcare specialist in controlling addictions at the end of every opioid prescribed treatment. Some will not need this but for the ones that have been on them for a while due to pain/rehab, there would be no cold turkey stopping. At least if people are hooked, this prevents them from going out and getting heroin laced with fentanyl that could be deadly. We are basically setting people up to die this way in our current system.<p>Every solution I have seen is to be <i>harsher</i> on doctors expecting them to control it, or <i>harsher</i> on the amounts they give, all that is <i>strong arm tactics and pushing liability on people that don't want it</i> making the problem intensely worse. Instead we should put the liability of addiction on the patient themselves and give them options to help themselves with education and rehab, don't just cut them off and leave them on their own.<p>We need a health layer in our system that helps people with addictions and getting quality drugs that aren't going to kill them as some people will just do that and some need help, we can pay for it by ending the <i>War on Drugs</i>. Pharmaceuticals will go along with this plan because it allows people to keep getting pharma drugs as long as they need to get off of them, but users won't be doing it alone, nor trying to stop cold turkey. This type of policy will help a large portion of at least the opioid addicts that get hooked through regular medical channels.<p>Ending the <i>War on Drugs</i> while using that money for healthcare/rehab instead of incarceration, allowing other low level substances like cannabis, and providing people a path to take when they finish with their medical treatment if they find they have an addiction is better. Once the US stops treating drug usage and addictions as a crime and start viewing them as health issues or manageable issues with lower level substances, this will all be much, much better.