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In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets. By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no end in sight. (Higham and Bernstein, 10/15)

Joe Rannazzisi is a man of strong passions who admits that he has a temper. For more than a decade, he was the frontman in the government’s war against opioid abuse. As head of the Office of Diversion Control for the Drug Enforcement Administration, he was responsible for cracking down on doctors, pharmacies, drug manufacturers and distributors who did not follow the nation’s prescription drug laws. He said he worked hard to uphold the law, until he was pushed out by members of Congress and an industry campaign that he says has resulted in a weakening of the nation’s drug laws at a time of unprecedented crisis. (Higham and Bernstein, 10/15)

Tom Marino is a four-term Republican member of the House who represents a district in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been hard-hit by the opioid crisis. Yet Marino also has been a friend on Capitol Hill of the giant drug companies that distribute the pain pills that have wreaked so much devastation around the nation. Marino was the chief advocate of the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which requires the government to meet a higher bar before taking certain enforcement actions. (Higham and Bernstein, 10/15)

In another effort to hold drug distributors accountable for the opioid crisis, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is urging Cardinal Health shareholders to appoint an independent chairman, the second such time the union has taken this type of step against a wholesaler in recent months. The union sent a letter on Friday arguing for the move in light of successive settlements the wholesaler reached in the past year with state and federal authorities. A $20 million deal was reached with West Virginia for failing to prevent the diversion of opioid painkillers and a $44 million agreement was concluded with the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to report large amounts of suspicious orders. (Silverman, 10/13)

[Bridget] Freisthler, a professor and associate dean at Ohio State University’s College of Social Work, led a team that recently won a $3 million federal grant — one of the largest in the college’s history — to address drug-related child-abuse and neglect cases by working with central Ohio’s Fairfield and Pickaway counties. The award will provide “much-needed financial support for services for these children and families,” Freisthler said, at a time when addiction’s effects on children often are overshadowed by the effort to reduce overdose deaths. (Price, 10/16)