Caulkins: Here's What Policymakers Need to Know About Drugs in 2025
Impact: Professor Caulkins's research offers concrete steps for policymakers to respond the surging supply of fentanyl in the U.S.
Researcher: Jonathan Caulkins, Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy
Summary: The crisis of illegal fentanyl and other synthetic opioids is best understood as a massive expansion in supply, not an epidemic of new drug use. The big expansion in opioid use disorder (OUD) was driven by abuse of prescription opioids (PO) that were produced, distributed, and dispensed by the health care system. This occurred largely legally, beginning in the late 1990s. If the 1980s crack epidemic produced an unusually large number of drug-related homicides, disorder, and flagrant place-based markets per person who became dependent, the PO epidemic was the opposite. However, over time, a subset of those individuals “traded down” to illegal opioid markets, where prices per morphine equivalent dose are lower.
Additional Research Links:
How Should Drug Policy Respond to Surging Supplies of Dangerous Drugs?
Changes in Self-Reported Cannabis Use in the United States from 1979 to 2022
