But clearly we haven’t woken up enough to do something about it.

I'm not sure what there is to do. It's really hard to remove stuff from wastewater that doesn't sink, float, get metabolized by microorganisms or plants, or get removed by sand filters.

If people literally dying in the streets isn't enough to "wake" people up, an article about opioids in mussels has a very poor chance of doing so, as well.

Because of the hysteria and resulting "OMG DO SOMETHING," the US government has turned it from an opioid (pill) epidemic to a fentanyl and heroin epidemic. Of course the latter is much more difficult (if not impossible) to control, and much, much more dangerous. So as a result of "OMG DO SOMETHING," the US government did probably the worst thing they could have possibly done.

If only there was a long and ugly drug war we could have used to reflect on the success or failure of the US government and it's attempt to control drug use. /s

Every decade, there is a new boogieman drug, just like there is a boogieman -ism. Anarchism, Communism, Satanism, Terrorism. Reefers, LSD, Huffing, Cocaine, Crack, Meth, Nicotine, Jenkem, Pills, Heroin. I have no conclusions to draw, but it is an interesting phenomenon.

Here's how the current battle of the drug war is going.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...

That seems pretty obvious to me.

Back in the 70s, I recall that marijuana became less available, and more expensive, for a year or so. So we switched to other drugs. More acid. Cocaine. Various sedatives. And of course, alcohol.