John Oliver Takes a Hard Look at the Effect of Highly Addictive Opioids in the United States

Taking his cue from a comment made by the Republican Presidential candidate in New Hampshire, a righteously frustrated John Oliver of Last Week Tonight took a hard and sadly hilarious look at at the prevalence of opioids such as heroin or Oxycontin in the United States noting the very thin lines that divide the analgesic, palliative and addictive effects.

But the thing is that is symptomatic of the fact that Americans are facing an epidemic of addiction to opioids like heroin and prescription painkillers as of March 2015 an estimated 2.6 million Americans were addicted to them and they’re now involved in almost 30,000 overdose deaths a year in the US …but at a certain point the question has to become less what did we do wrong and more what do we do now? Because these drugs are still the most effective solution for certain types of pain and many patients need them so we can’t get rid of them, but we have to be much more careful about how they’re prescribed.