Sep 30, 2014 2 min read

Heroin has become cheaper than beer, and there are few hurdles to clear if you want opiate painkillers. This has led to an explosion of abuse and overdoses throughout the region, a report released Monday by U.S. Attorney David Hickton’s office found.

That will not be news to anyone who has kept their eyes trained on the police blotter in this newspaper, or any other in the region, or scanned the obituary pages and seen the death notices for people who have departed this life in their prime. As we’ve known since the days when Frank Sinatra powerfully portrayed the effects of heroin addiction in “The Man With the Golden Arm,” drugs that promise to erase your pain and take the sharp edges off the day-to-day grind can also kill.

The report offered recommendations on how this epidemic can be curbed, and they involve doctors, hospitals, law enforcement and, yes, the public. Though arrests can be made and users and pushers can be jailed, Hickton pointed out that “we cannot prosecute our way out of this.”

Among its key findings, the report called for the increased availability of naloxone, which can counteract heroin overdose symptoms, the creation of a regional overdose database, enhanced treatment programs and a statewide database that would prevent patients from doctor shopping and loading up on prescription painkillers. A proposal to do that has been knocking around Harrisburg for a while, but has not become law.

It should. Epidemics only grow when preventative steps are ignored or delayed.