What is the U.S. doing while the war on drugs fails miserably?

'Fourteen billion opioid pills are now dispensed annually in the United States - enough for every adult American to have a bottle of pills.'

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services made a shocking announcement, leaving many questioning what the United States has been doing with billions of dollars each year.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announced, "[T]he United States is in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic. If you or someone you know needs help, effective treatment is available and can save lives."

According to the site, there are several programs drug addicts can turn to, which is all paid for by taxpayers.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, so far in 2017, the United States spent $15,826,300,000 on "Treatment and prevention" for drug addicts and $15,245,100,000 on "Law enforcement and interdiction."

U.S. President Donald Trump stated policymakers needed to be "tough on crime," adding, "Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad. It will destroy your life."

So what has the government been doing with its insane budget for the war on drugs?

The Federal Drug Control Budget of 2015 revealed the Obama administration has focused on drug use as "a health issues instead of a criminal justice issue."

This has led to the recent opioid crisis hitting the nation, leaving children with overdosed parents in vehicles, grocery stores, parking lots and at home.

The United States is currently the world's largest illegal drug and prescription drug consumer and there is currently no working system in place to put it all to a stop.

There are rehabilitation programs, campaigns for more programs and education and lawful crackdowns - but none of these seem to be working.

Senator Dick Durban of Illinois released a letter last July reading, in part: "We agree and believe efforts to halt this widespread epidemic will not be successful unless we use every tool at our disposal. We urge DEA to utilize its existing quota setting authority, to the fullest extent possible, to combat this epidemic.

"Fourteen billion opioid pills are now dispensed annually in the United States - enough for every adult American to have a bottle of pills. Certainly, the pharmaceutical industry is at fault for decades of misleading information about their products and the medical community bears responsibility for its role in over-prescribing these dangerous and addictive drugs, but we remain deeply troubled by the sheer volume of opioids available - volumes that are approved by DEA."

He continued, offering new guidelines for opioid drug manufacturers and the DEA, including the following requests:

• "Remove, for schedule II opioids, the 25 percent across-the-board aggregate production quota increase that was implemented in 2013;
• Take into consideration the impact of the opioid manufacturing quotas on the downstream public health burden of opioid misuse and diversion;
• Make public the approved individual manufacturing quota for each manufacturer of schedule II opioids, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone, and fentanyl;
• In years during which the approved opioid manufacturing quotas increase, provide public justification to explain why the public health benefits of increasing the quotas outweigh the consequences of having an increased volume of such substances available for sale and potential diversion in the United States; and
• Identify formal strategies to improve data collection from approved drug collection receptacles, mail-back programs, and take-back events on the volume and class of controlled substances that are collected and develop a plan to use this information to inform the quota-setting process in subsequent years."

So far the DEA does not appear to have listened to Durban's suggestions. How many more billions must be lost in this fruitless war on drugs before the government attempts different tactics?

We'll all just have to wait and see. In the meantime, please pray for healing, peace and forgiveness for those who turn to drugs and don't know they can instead turn to Christ to break the yoke of addiction from their shoulders.

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