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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > May > 23 > Entry
Editorial: Moves on pill abuse right — so far
Everybody in power is acting against “pill mills” and the abuse of prescription pain-killing drugs, abuse that is killing four Ohioans a day, more than any other accidental cause of death.
This concerted action is good to see; long overdue. And it seems constructive and measured. But perhaps the main thing to be said at this stage is that sometimes when unanimity sets in, things can go too far.
The new actions cannot go to the point of making pain killing pills harder to get for people who really need them, cannot scare doctors about prescribing them.
Modern advances in the fight against pain have been one of the great stories our time. People must have access to what science can provide.
Another legitimate concern: Cutting off the supply of some drugs to addicts could result in them moving to other drugs, including illegal ones.
That doesn’t mean the cutoff shouldn’t happen, just that some thought must go into anticipating and confronting the cutoff’s unintended effects, as well as the intended ones.
The Ohio legislature has unanimously put legislation before a governor who called for it. It would, among other things, allow the state to license pain-management clinics on the grounds that they distribute dangerous drugs.
Meanwhile, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and an existing regulatory board have kicked into high gear. New laws. Enhanced enforcement. And still more ideas are showing up.
As all that happens, it’s worth remembering how the overdose problem developed.
Dr. Robert Taylor, of the Center for Palliative Care at Ohio State University Medical Center, said, “I think there really was a crisis of inadequate pain management. “Now,” he continued, “there’s a crisis of drug abuse and diversion. The challenge is always to sort of figure out what’s the right balance.”
He doesn’t think government has gone too far yet. “They don’t strike me as getting involved in witch hunts or anything like that,” he said.
That’s good to hear. But even when intentions are good, passions and unanimity can lead people astray.
So can political competition, including the desire to find a proposed solution that will look good to the public but would cause problems for other politicians.
To make Ohio’s fight against abuse of pain pills a case study in government doing the right things in unanimity — a study with a happy ending — the politicians and regulators will have to know when enough is enough.
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