Even Sesame Street can't avoid the opioid crisis

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"Hi, it's me, Karli. I'm here with my friend Salia. Both of our parents have had the same problem -- addiction," Karli said.

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"My mom and dad told me that addiction is a sickness," Salia said.

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"Right, we're not alone," Salia responded. "And it's OK to open up to people about our feelings."

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Show creators wanted to address addiction because there are 5.7 million children under the age of 7 who live in households with a parent battling substance abuse, they said.

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I prefer the good ole days

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This shite has gone way too far. The opioid crisis is a mess created primarily by pharmaceutical companies pushing oxycontin and other opioids to doctors and telling them that it was a non-addictive medication. Once it was realized how very addicting these pain medications were, the knee jerk reaction by the govt was to reschedule the drugs and make doctors fearful to prescribe opioids for pain. Once the supply of legal pain medications got tight patients sought street drugs for both addiction and pain relief. AS the demand for street drugs grew, the chinese were more than happy to provide large amounts of fentanyl which has caused tremendous problems with overdoses, etc. I don't know the answer to this problem but the govt and medical community need to come together and figure a way to get pain relief to those who need it while limiting access to opioids to help prevent addiction. There has to be a good middle ground somewhere, where we are now is not acceptable. Too many people dying from overdoses and people with chronic pain are largely unable to get the medications to ease the pain. We have to find a way to do this better.

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