(NaturalNews) Congress has just passed 18 bills created to address the nation's opioid epidemic, but is the government really serious about tackling the problem?

Although the legislation passed overwhelmingly, there will be no funding available until 2017 for the various programs contained in the bills, and the big question is whether anything will be done to stop Big Pharma from over-supplying the country with dangerous and addictive prescription opioids.

The number of overdoses from opioid drugs – including illegal heroin and legal painkillers – has tripled over the last 15 years. Nearly 29,000 Americans died from overdoses in 2014, and an estimated 44 lives are lost each day in the U.S. due to opioid use.
 

Number one cause of accidental death

Deaths from overdoses have now surpassed those from car accidents, making them the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S.

It may surprise some to learn that more than half of these overdose deaths are caused, not by black market heroin, but by prescription opioid painkillers that have become increasingly available to the American public over the past couple of decades.

From the American Society of Addiction Medicine:

"Of the 21.5 million Americans 12 or older that had a substance use disorder in 2014, 1.9 million had a substance use disorder involving prescription pain relievers and 586,000 had a substance use disorder involving heroin."

In other words, the number of people who have a prescription opioid problem is more than three times that of those with a heroin problem – and this is happening at a time when there is more heroin than ever on the streets of America.

From the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

"Several factors are likely to have contributed to the severity of the current prescription drug abuse problem. They include drastic increases in the number of prescriptions written and dispensed, greater social acceptability for using medications for different purposes, and aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies. These factors together have helped create the broad 'environmental availability' of prescription medications in general and opioid analgesics in particular."
 

Big Pharma's dope dealing operation

Doctors routinely over-prescribe opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin, and in quantities that can quickly lead to addiction.

From The Institute for Natural Healing:

"A new study finds that 99% of doctors violate federal guidelines when handing out prescriptions for narcotic painkillers.

"Nearly a quarter of physicians routinely give out a month's worth of powerful opioids when a patient complains of pain. This is enough to cause brain changes that lead to addiction.

"The research by the National Safety Council found only a third of doctors ask about a family history of addiction.

"The problem has reached the point where pharmaceutical painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin now cause more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined."

Meanwhile, the FDA continues to suppress the use of natural painkillers, such as cannabis, while allowing addictive opioid drugs to proliferate.