How the war on opioids is worsening a crisis

Whenever government confronts a public-health “crisis,” sensible policies usually get lost in the resulting hysteria. The latest example involves the nation’s opioid epidemic, as total drug-overdose deaths have soared from under 17,000 in 1999 to more than 67,000 in 2018, according to the latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control.
State policies, however, risk making this troubling situation worse. For example, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra last year