President Obama stands ready to sign the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA). This bill will make available more treatments for opioid addiction and is intended to deter inappropriate prescribing of prescription opioids. As a recent Washington Post article points out, critics of CARA fear that this legislation could “cause prescription opioid users to switch to heroin, thereby feeding a second opioid epidemic.”

The Heroin Epidemic

I am also concerned about the heroin epidemic. But it’s important that we understand the actual reasons for the increase in heroin use. The Post article cited above, “The Real Reason That So Many More Americans Are Using Heroin” by Keith Humphreys, clarified some of the myths surrounding this issue.