Report: DEA did too little to constrain opioid supply even as crisis escalated
WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration fell dramatically short in regulating the prescription opioid supply over the past two decades — even as the country’s addiction and overdose crisis escalated, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.
As prescription levels and demand for pain drugs rose, the agency continued to raise manufacturing quotas for opioids with little regard to potential oversupply or misuse, according to the report. Prescription opioid oversupply is seen as a major factor in the broader drug crisis, which left 70,000 Americans dead in 2017 — roughly 48,000 from opioid-involved overdoses.
