THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Once again Congress, in its "wisdom", is making sure the barn door stays open on a serious problem created and supported by some of their corporate sponsors. This one is a pharmaceutical problem created by the widespread sale and use of opioid painkillers.

The House and the Senate passed bills this spring that would, among other things, bolster prescription drug monitoring and treatment and abuse-prevention programs; fund drug disposal efforts; and assist states that want to expand the availability of the drug naloxone, which helps reverse overdoses. Even though their differences have yet to be worked out, lawmakers in both chambers are trumpeting those actions, banking on them to bolster their re-election prospects.

More quietly, Congress passed and President Obama signed a very different measure last month that curtailed Drug Enforcement Administration powers to pursue pharmacies and wholesalers that the agency believes have contributed to the epidemic.

Mr. White, 67, said the law was crucial. “The crackdown by the D.E.A. has gone too far,” he said.

Advocates of a stronger response are incredulous.

“I’m shocked that Congress and the president would constrain D.E.A. from taking on corporate drug dealers in the midst of the worst addiction epidemic in U.S. history,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and an addiction specialist. “This law allows opioid distributors to reap enormous profits and operate with impunity at the public’s expense.”

Congress’s actions have sought to balance the conflicting demands of deep-pocketed chain pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens and drug distribution companies like Cardinal Health and McKesson with the victims of an epidemic that has ravaged some of the poorest parts of the country — but also some of the most politically sensitive, like Ohio and New Hampshire.

Chain pharmacies and drug distributors say their businesses have been disrupted and profits hurt by D.E.A. investigators who have ordered immediate closures of pharmacies deemed regional destinations for addicts seeking a fix.

“The D.E.A. has employed the same disrupt-and-dismantle tactics to take down international drug cartels and other criminals as it does to combat prescription drug abuse,” said John Gray, the president of the Healthcare Distribution Management Association, a trade organization for drug wholesalers.

But past and present agency officials complain that they were steamrollered by a powerful lobby.

“Under this law, the bad actors simply have to promise to be good, and we won’t take them to court to punish them for what they’ve already done,” said Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who retired in October after 11 years of directing the D.E.A.’s office of diversion control. “It’s obvious that industry had a very strong hand in crafting this bill.”

Because nothing can be allowed to get in the way of corporate profits. At least not until the death toll starts to diminish the market.