It's true California has not been hit as hard by the opioid epidemic as other states that have struggled with it in the Northeast and Appalachia. The worst example? West Virginia has nearly four times per capita the number of fatal drug overdoses as the Golden State, according to 2015 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control. Still, thousands of Californians have died in recent years because of opioids, particularly in rural northern counties.
But this grim state of affairs doesn't seem to have registered with the California Department of Justice. It's been more than 16 months since Senate Bill 482 became law. Authored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, it directed the department to establish a prescription database to help identify addicted patients who are "doctor shopping" to try to stockpile the narcotics. A Sacramento Bee report this week said it appears the database won't be up and running until next year. The Attorney General's Office cited the need to set up the database carefully to ensure it could handle the heavy volume of information it would be processing. The hiring of needed workers was only completed last month.
This lethargy about a public health crisis is hard to fathom. Attorney General Xavier Becerra has pleased many Californians with the time and energy he's spent denouncing President Donald Trump and the Trump administration. Here's a thought: Some of that time and energy should be spent on his own agency. Its priorities badly need addressing.
