Nick Miroff, The Washington Post:

Well, I think what we're seeing here, when you step back, is an accumulation of failures. And it really goes back to the first wave of opioid addiction that came out of American struggles with pharmaceutical pain pills.

And once the U.S. government started to crack down on the U.S. opioid manufacturers during the Bush administration, there was a tremendous vacuum in the market. There were millions of people who were addicted already, and essentially primed and in need of something to continue that addiction.

And that vacuum, so to speak, was filled first by illegal heroin that Mexican drug trafficking organizations were sending to United States, but quickly after by failure. And the United States government, really across multiple institutions and administrations, was slow to recognize that threat, slow to see that transition, and has been — and has been generally slow to respond.

And that is true of the DEA, the nation's premier anti-narcotics agency, which, in the face of the biggest challenge in its 50-year history, really, really faltered, but also the Department of Homeland Security and the White House drug czar's office and others. This is really a failure of American institutions to respond to a grave national security threat.

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