In its effort to stem the national opioid crisis, the Trump administration has issued a new regulation giving the Drug Enforcement Administration greater control over how many prescription opioids are manufactured each year.
The DEA already sets quotas for how many opioids a manufacturer can make in a given year. But the new regulation, finalized by the Department of Justice on Wednesday, allows the DEA to lower the quota for drugs that are found to be diverted for abuse in especially large quantities.
The regulation comes just months after a congressional investigation found that rogue drug distributors had given millions of pills to small communities in West Virginia.
“These revised limits will encourage vigilance on the part of opioid manufacturers, help DEA respond to the changing drug threat environment, and protect American people from potentially addictive drugs while ensuring the country has enough opioids for genuine medical, scientific, research and industrial needs,” DOJ said in a release on Wednesday.
The regulation also requires the DEA to share more quota information with state attorneys general. State attorneys general could get hearings if necessary to resolve any objections to proposed quotas.
Federal data shows that in 2016 more than 42,000 Americans died from a prescription drug overdose.
[Related: House approves massive bill to fight opioid addiction]
