This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Tuesday, August 8th, 2017.

I'm Gila Brown. Public understanding of the opioid crisis gripping various communities needs some clarity.

Jeffrey Singer, a physician and senior fellow at the Cato Institute,

discusses some of the misconceptions and underappreciated facts about how opioids and addiction function.

Where have we seen these dramatic increases in opioid addiction in the United States?

Well the big story is that instead of it being in the stereotypical inner cities, which is what everyone has

become accustomed to assuming it is, now we're seeing

an attack suburban predominantly white communities, middle class, upper middle class.

And of course, we've seen a lot of it in areas that are economically

chronically depressed, like Appalachia, the so-called Rust Belt.

And the thing is that, and that's I think why it's been gathering so much attention now

because it's impacting the groups that have not been historically

marginalized.

Now it's now it's affecting everybody's feeling it.

So that's why it's getting so much attention.

But the causes are really multifactorial.

There's this misconception that's fueling a lot of the policy

that basically doctors are overprescribing pain medication

to patients who then become addicted and then when they get cut off or

They don't get enough from their doctor. They go into the illegal drug market and become heroin addicts

But that's really not the case drug market and become heroin addicts.

But that's really not the case.

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