It is not that there is no effort to combat the opioid crisis sweeping across Long Island and the rest of the country.
It is just that the effort falls so woefully short of the crisis that we are facing as to boggle the mind and shock the conscience.
An investigation recently published by The New York Times found that 59,000 Americans died in 2016 of drug overdoses.
That reflected the largest annual jump in such deaths ever recorded in the U.S.
As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof pointed out, “about as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.”
How bad is it?
Nationwide, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.
In Nassau County, deaths from opioid overdoses increased from 177 in 2015 to 190 in 2016, according to an April Newsday report citing statistics from the medical examiner’s office.
Nassau County was ranked third in the state in 2014 among the 62 counties when it recorded 58 heroin deaths and 90 prescription opioid deaths — trailing only Suffolk County at No. 1 and Brooklyn at No. 2.
One reason for the spike in opioid deaths is the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is cheap and potent.
Sen. Chuck Schumer recently noted that “Fentanyl is colorless, odorless and 50 to 100 times more potent than regular heroin.”
Schumer announced he is backing a bill that would choke the influx of fentanyl, which is made mostly in China, into the country.
A second driver is the grip of prescription painkillers.
Last year, Kristof reported, there were more than 236 million prescriptions written for opioids in the United States — about one bottle of opioids for every American adult. And as health professionals note, prescription opioids have often served as a gateway to less expensive heroin and fentanyl. Some 2.6 million Americans are believed to be addicted to prescription drugs and heroin.
Nassau County recently joined several other New York State counties as well as three states in filing a lawsuit against drug manufacturers, distributors and doctors, accusing them of profiting from the local opioid crisis.
The pharmaceutical companies were part of a “sophisticated and highly deceptive and unfair marketing campaign” that, over the last two decades, promoted addictive drugs for long-term treatment as well as short-term pain relief, shifting conventional medical wisdom in the process, the suit alleges.
“The opioid crisis is costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year and this action seeks to recoup dollars for important awareness, education, enforcement and treatment initiatives to combat the war on drug abuse and addiction,” Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said in a statement.
The lawsuits have been compared to the legal strategy against the tobacco industry in the 1990s, which led to the largest civil settlement in American history and a financial windfall for states.
But those suits took many years to wend their way through the courts and there is no guarantee that the various municipalities will have similar success with the drug manufacturers.
Pressed by Assembly Democrats and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state Legislature approved $213 million in spending statewide in the most recent state budget — with $23 million going to Long Island for anti-opioid programs and addiction treatment, combined with efforts to force insurance companies to do more for addicts and increased efforts to go after dealers.
But Republican senators have refused to support other steps such as requiring insurance companies to pay for outpatient addiction services for which they have not given prior authorization, instead focusing on bills to crack down on dealers.
Of even greater concern is the federal government.
The plan President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are pressing to repeal Obamacare would slash money for addiction treatment and Medicaid — a major source of funding for drug treatment.
Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, has seemed to belittle treatments for opioid addiction at a time experts have concluded that medication in conjunction with counseling works best.
And Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to have embraced the theory that we can jail our way of the problem — the traditional answer to the drug problem.
To which we have to ask: How’s that working out lately.
Outside of Washington, both Democrats and Republicans have come to understand what works in combating the opioid crisis.
Unfortunately, these efforts fall well short of the enormity of the crisis and the death toll continues to mount.
