Demand Strong Evidence for All-Too-Familiar Claims of Crisis: "The Opioid Epidemic"

Carl Sagan popularized the excellent rule, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," which I'll call (very informally) "Sagan's Law" and to which I'll add what I'll call "Mike Males's Caution": «Politically charged claims that sound really familiar should be viewed with strong skepticism.»
I get this principle from Males's work in the late 20th c. on "The Scapegoat Generation" and "Framing Youth," and his observation that claims of various failings and social pathologies among older US teenagers seemed very much like earlier accusations — sometimes backed with impressive-sounding science — against Blacks, women, Jews, immigrants, and other groups being economically and politically held back by being (mostly figuratively) held down.
Similarly, when we have another crisis epidemic of drug use, keep in mind the last several and ask for really strong evidence that we don't have just problems — and problems best handled as a public health issue, and a public health issue perhaps best seen as just another incarnation of America's drug habits and the US as a drug culture: where you can buy hard, addictive drugs in your local Krogers (check out the liquor sections and cigarettes), and where you are surrounded by ads that promise near-magic improvements in your life if you just take the right pills or drink the right booze (and, soon, smoke a sufficiently fashionable name-brand weed).
With any pain-killer, you're going to get some addiction and a fair amount of abuse; and drug use, like pretty much all things human, is subject to The Iron Law of Fashion about which the Powers That Be usually can't do a whole lot (but will take credit when fashions change: during the longer or, often, shorter period between one crisis and the next). So I'm sure there are problems and serious problems with opioids. 
I want to see serious statistics, though, and serious policies not only dealing with abuse of a pain-killer (more exactly: pain-ameliorator) but also for reducing people's pain. So before you come to get my Tramadol — I can't take NSAIDs any more if I want my kidneys to keep working — I want some stats on social pathologies for opioids per 100,000 population and with careful definition of those pathologies. 
To twist a partial quotation from Karl Marx, «Opiates and opioids are the opium of today's suffering people" and the pharmalogicals are probably less dangerous than fanatical enthusiasms in religion and/or politics. All things considered, opium might've been a fairly sensible choice among the wretched of the Earth in Marx's time — opium reduces pain and hunger — and so might an addiction leading to a fairly quick death. 
We need to hear solid, honest, disinterested statistics and analysis of the current US opioid problem, plus some suggestions for reducing sociological and economic pain, making it less pressing for people to use painkillers.
When US troops came home from Vietnam, Americans felt threatened by a HEROIN EPIDEMIC!!! from the return of hordes of heroin addicts. It didn't happen. Military users were dried out in 'Nam and sent home. Those who returned to a decent life, left their pain in Vietnam, the way most people recovering from surgery leave their pain and heavy narcotics in the hospital. Those who returned to pain and available and relatively cheap heroin, often returned to heroin. 
The situation will be similar with opioids, except I don't think American politics will allow us to even think about reduction of harm from reduction of social and economic pain. Minimally, though, let's apply Sagan's Law and Mike Males's Caution: don't panic, be skeptical, and demand rigorous analysis and compassionate policy.

Opiates and Other Drugs, Endemic and Cyclical (18 February 2014)

Rate: 2 Flag

            Page one of my local newspaper for 16 Feb. 2014, above the fold: "Opiates plague east county," a variation on headlines you've probably seen in your newspaper since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that I've seen since the 1950s.

            So here's a repetition of an exercise for you. ("Reps" are crucial for social attitudes, as well as building muscles.)

            Start with the observation that "alcohol and drugs" is improper English because alcohol is a drug, and "alcohol and drugs" makes as much sense as "editors and humans." The phrase "alcohol and drugs" may be acceptable as common usage, but it's unethical because it sneaks in a lie.

            Nicotine is also a drug, and caffeine; and if sugar isn't exactly a drug it acts like one, and in terms of the drug/crime connection, the history of sugar is atrocious for its key role in the Atlantic slave trade, where deaths and stolen lives were in the tens of millions. (Tobacco, molasses, and rum were also crucial for the sordid history of American slavery, so that crime/drug connection is very old, very wide, and deep in the cultures of the Americas.)

            So if you drink an Irish Coffee now and then, you're using drugs. Don't feel guilty, not unless you're a drunk, or you're stereotyping the Irish; drug use is normal human behavior and boozing as older than civilization.

            Drug use is normal but a problem since some portion of any population will misuse any drug for pleasure, and if the drug kills pain, significant numbers will become addicted.

            Drugs and drug problems are going to be both endemic — always around — and cyclical: following the laws of economics and trends in politics and even fashion.

            The solution?

            Social problems aren't math problems to be solved; social problem can only be ameliorated, managed. "First, do no harm," and after that, do what harm-reduction you can.

            The local newspaper headline was under the label, "Crime/Courts": That's part of the problem. Drug problems as such, with no immediate harm to others involved, should be handled under "Public Health," not criminal law. Handling drug problems, as such, as crime, does do harm, and more harm than it prevents.