Should we educate all those uneducated folks? 

Actually, the opioid epidemic is just part of the long-standing drug use epidemic that America has had for decades. The drugs have changed, as has their lethality, but the common elements of who gets dragged in have remained. It's not just being uneducated that makes one more likely to fall in, it's a lack of economic opportunity that plays a key role.

In the 1960's, '70's and '80s, it was mainly urban blacks who suffered from the scourge of addiction and hopeless local economies. Now both of those have spread to white-dominated areas. Of course that means that America suddenly cares about addiction issues, what a coincidence.

We had better figure out a way to employ people in the age of automation, or soon all the people will live short, nasty brutish lives of addiction. Perhaps some taxes on the highest incomes coupled with employment programs, sort of Ike meets FDR, is the ticket.