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I agree with you Mr. Corrente. This is a community epidemic that is going to take alot of effort from alot of people. This is the type of legislation that Joe McNamara should be passing, not appetizer bills.

The doctors prescribing the medication, the police enforcing the laws, friends and family of people with substance abuse issues can play a big role in solving this problem.

Doctors are vitally important as far as the amount of medication they are prescribing. Minor back pain isn't a reason to prescribe 40 Vicodin to anyone. The amount and the doses prescribed need to be reigned in under better guidelines.

Another issue that needs to be addressed (I don't believe it's addressed in this legislation) is that addiction specialist Dr's are currently capped at 100 patients per doctor under state law. The problem with that is there are not many addiction certified specialists. For such a large epidemic, that cap needs to be lifted, perhaps even doubled to 200 as many of these doctors are at 100 patients already. This would give more people access to the same treatment and prevent people from being turned away. This is a bigger problem than most everyday people realize, with awareness etc we can make sure it is contained and make certain that it doesn't get any worse.