A walk on the supply side: Thirty books about the opioid crisis

Abstract Background, Aims, Method The U.S. opioid crisis has inspired books by authors in several disciplines. Though their narratives have attracted individual notice and, often, wide readership, they have yet to be assessed as a body of literature. I undertook to do so in a review‐essay that summarizes and comments on key findings, controversies, and unresolved questions. Results/Summary The crisis, which originated in the promotion of opioid prescribing for chronic non‐cancer pain, has led to renewed emphasis on supply control, the dangers of commercial promotion, the threats of regulatory capture and corruption, and the centrality of diversion, both of opioid analgesics and opioids for medication‐assisted treatment (MAT). Diversion concerns have complicated responses to the crisis, which has left a legacy of pain patients dependent on opioids and addicted patients seeking MAT—a situation not unlike that facing methadone patients and providers confronting regulatory pushback in the 1970s. Reactions to the opioid crisis and its predecessors illuminate an enduring policy divide, that between capital‐P Progressives who seek to maximize primary prevention by minimizing population exposure and small‐p progressives who seek to maximize harm reduction by increasing safe legal access for individual users.