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Within the past few weeks, the severity of the opioid crisis has come to light. President Trump recently gave the following remarks regarding the aforementioned problem:

"Strong law enforcement is absolutely vital to having a drug-free society. I'm confident that by working with our health care and law enforcement experts we will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win."

The Opioid Crisis

The opioid addiction is dangerous and deadly. During yesterday's White House Press Briefing, Tom Price and Kellyanne Conway shared some alarming statistics. For starters, opioids engendered a total of 52,000 deaths in 2015. In 2016 and 2017, the numbers increased even more.

Even more worse is the reality that every 25 minutes, a baby is born addicted to opioids. Addiction to any substance is highly dangerous. However, the matter is even graver when young, newborn minds suffer from addiction. According to Tom Price, the White House is working with several departments to develop solutions.

Law and Order Approach

Critics of President Trump affirm the preferability of medical treatment to law and order. However, a healthy dosage of both is necessary to end the opioid epidemic. While some people truly struggle with the use of opioids, others willfully abuse the substance. A healthy law and order approach will undoubtedly incentivize some people to avoid the abuse of opioids.

Reporters at Politico inferred in yesterday's piece that "new treatment and social programs" are better than law and order. Nonetheless, they failed to take a few variables into account. Treatment and social programs do not work for every individual. People who are unable or simply choose not to take advantage of treatment programs need to be motivated differently. All the social programs and treatments in the world will not stop some people from abusing opioids. This is why law and order is necessary.

Curtailing Further Opioid Addictions

As reported by U.S. News, the level of training received by doctors has a significant impact on whether or not they prescribe opioids to patients. Physicians with less training prescribed nearly 50% of opioid treatments between the years of 2006 and 2014. Conversely, doctors who attended the best medical schools were much less likely to write a prescription for opioids.

Going forward, solutions for combating opioid addictions are clear. In addition to treatment programs and law and order, the law must require doctors to undergo the highest capacity of training before allowance to write prescriptions. In order to save people from opioid addictions, doctors need to be 100% sure of whether opioids are truly needed to remedy patients' ailments.