Congressional Commission Calls For New Strategy and Leadership to Tackle Opioid Crisis

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : The recommended strategy would rely on law enforcement and diplomacy to shut down sources of chemicals used to make synthetic opioids, offer treatment and support for people who become addicted, creating pathways that can lead back to productive lives, and invest in research to better understand addiction's grip on the human brain and to develop treatments for opioid use disorder.
48% : The value of treatment has recently gained recognition with anti-addiction medicines in wide use alongside older strategies like support groups as the culture shifts away from continuing the losing "war on drugs" and the committee recommends both law enforcement and treatment working in sync with one another to tackle the epidemic that has been worsened by the influx of of fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.
37% : Most of the opioid overdose deaths in D.C. in 2021 -- 94 percent -- involved fentanyl, much of which was taken unintentionally as the drug continues to turn up in heroin, cocaine, counterfeit pills, marijuana, and even cigarettes.

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