The author is a person well-equipped to speak on the issues related to the opioid epidemic: he is a patient who needed more than short-term opioids, a former CDC employee, and a doctor. Insightful arguments on why doctors should be trusted to do what’s best for the patient, and that the CDC guidelines were written by those not in the trenches. The pendulum has swung to both extremes, and the author suggests that the solution lies somewhere in-between.

Last year opioids killed a reported 148,000 (mostly young) Americans, and so far, the DEA is not winning the war against these killer drugs. China manufactures the precursors, and ships these chemicals to Mexico, where the cartels combine them into fentanyl after which it is smuggled across America's open Southern border and is then distributed for illicit sales to our nation's young people, many of whom die. The US government must apply unrelenting pressure on the government to halt its production and must also assist the Mexican government to interdict its importation into our nation. In this way, the death toll can be greatly reduced.