A partisan drug fight swirled in the background last year amid other developments in the nation’s opioid crisis. It’s an unfortunate development whose continuation in 2018 should be watched closely.

When the New York Times, National Public Radio and Pro-Publica run stories the same month questioning the effectiveness of a drug used in what is called “Medically Assisted Treatment” of addiction, one should be at least a bit wary that there is a campaign running in the background. Sure enough, NPR tipped its hand by quoting an anonymous Democratic Hill staffer in a piece last June, who feigned alarm about the lobbying tactics of one of the pharmaceutical companies involved in opioid treatment.