MINNEAPOLIS (LEARFIELD) - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving to curb the national opioid epidemic by slashing production of a number of popular prescription painkillers.
2017 production quotas for a variety of Schedule II drugs, including addictive narcotics like oxycodone, hydromorphone, codeine and fentanyl will be cut by at least 25-percent. The agency has the authority to set limits on manufacturing under the Controlled Substances Act.
Carol Falkowski, one of Minnesota's foremost drug addiction experts, says opioids are very effective when they are used post surgically and in the short term. She hopes the reduction in production of these drugs doesn't swing the pendulum to far the other away so that people whoin acute pain that could benefit from it in the short term stop getting the help they need.
This is the largest decrease in opioid production quotas in two decades.