Opioid op-eds rail against drug laws, lack of access to treatment, and a legal system that let the Sacklers walk

Two recent opinion pieces examine different aspects of the opioid crisis.

The first concerns the recent bankruptcy case of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which reached a settlement Sept. 1 after two years. Opioid victims were poorly served in the lawsuit, since the Sackler family was able to walk away from the bankruptcy still free and still wealthy, Ryan Hampton writes for The New York Times. Hampton is a recovering opioid addict who co-chaired the committee that represented plaintiffs in the case. He believes the legal system is devised to "protect extreme wealth and perpetuate social disparity," and that it must be reformed.

The settlement "comes at a pivotal time for the U.S. overdose crisis: 2020 was the worst year on record, with over 93,000 Americans losing their lives to fatal drug overdose," writes College of the Holy Cross sociology professor Emily B. Campbell for The Conversation. "The drug-overdose epidemic, now more than two decades long, has claimed the lives of more than 840,000 people since 1999. Current estimates suggest that some 2.3 million people in the U.S. use heroin and 1.7 million people use pharmaceutical opioids without a prescription."

Campbell, a sociologist who has studied the issue since 2016, writes that two major factors fuel the epidemic: drug-prohibition laws and lack of access to addiction treatment. Laws prohibiting drugs make the crisis worse by increasing demand, she writes, which causes illegal drugs to become cheaper and more potent over time.

Those who want to recover from addiction are often can't or are discouraged from getting help: "Roughly 70 percent of people who seek treatment are unable to access it. Barriers to treatment include health care costs, lack of available treatment options and social stigma. Research also demonstrates that some people are not ready for treatment or do not want to be sober," Campbell writes. "It is also well documented that fear of arrest and shame encourages people to hide their drug use in ways that increase their risk of a fatal overdose. This is because when people use alone, there is no one there to call 911 or perform CPR should an overdose occur."