The DEA is playing ‘whack-a-mole’ as it tries to stamp out the opioid crisis

File this under “unintended consequences.”

Four years ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration decided to make it harder to obtain the most commonly prescribed opioid painkillers — specifically, pills such as Vicodin that contain hydrocodone. The move worked: Prescriptions for hydrocodone-based opioids fell by a whopping 26 percent between June 2013 and June 2015.

But the tactic appears to have created yet another problem — there has been a notable uptick in illicit trading of opioids on the “dark net,” according to a new study published in BMJ.

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