Anyone who has ever flown post 9/11 has had to undergo increasingly invasive TSA searches, and yet we put up with it. In part, because we can’t fly if we don’t, but also it makes many people feel safe. It’s seen as a necessary inconvenience. It doesn’t matter that most terrorism is stopped by behind-the-scenes counter-terrorism by various agencies than privacy-invading body scans. However, the public can’t see or know about every instance prevented, hence the need for my increased visible security whether it helps or not.

To be fair, there’s something to be said for using a fake camera to discourage theft in a store, but it’s another to put people through dehumanizing screening when the process may be more costly, inconvenient, or even deadlier than any perceived benefit. The TSA airport screening has been often criticized as security theater that guzzles up money and even increases car accident deaths as people choose to fly less to avoid screenings.

The restrictions created by the 2016 CDC Opioid Guidelines are also a form of security theater. It seems obvious to many that if people are killing themselves accidentally with opioids, why not make it harder to get? If it were that simple, prohibition would have stopped alcohol consumption.

When it comes to addictive substances there is always a black market. The restrictions put in place didn’t stop addiction, it just changed where people get their drugs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to stop doctors who are intentionally profiting off addiction. I won’t pretend doctors like that don’t exist, but if the goal is to reduce overdoses then only focusing on legal prescriptions is like putting your finger in a hole in the dam and ignoring the larger gaping hole next to you. CDC data shows a decrease in prescription-related deaths while overdose deaths continue to rise due to illicit fentanyl.

Restricting addictive substances through legal means is easy. Actually trying to combat addiction and its root causes is much harder. We don’t have all the answers to addiction, but one thing is clear, making it harder for pain patients to access their beneficial opioid medications is not helping addicts and is devastating pain patients. Not only does the death toll of overdoses continue to rise, but many pain patients have committed suicide. Why would we continue a policy that doesn’t stop overdoses and causes more pain, suffering, and death?

Pain patients and addicts deserve better than to be collateral in this security theater that lets politicians and the CDC pat themselves on the back without actually solving the problem.