The Drug Enforcement Administration has often been criticized for the opioid epidemic getting out of control. But this week the DEA is putting a plan in place to reduce the amount of opioid drugs being manufactured in the U.S. in order to tackle the nationwide problem once and for all.

The DEA is responsible for regulating the amount of drugs manufactured each year in order to fulfil medical and research needs so they fully accept that they are partly responsible for the abundant use and availability of drugs such as oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine and hydrocodone, according to The Washington Times.

The highly addictive pain relievers will aim to be reduced by up to 34 percent next year but this is because between 2013 and 2016, the DEA increased opioid production in order to prevent shortages. Opioid prescriptions have fallen over the last year meaning the DEA has another reason to lower the amount manufactured. However, the problem has moved over to heroin addiction in many which is likely to be the cause for the drop in prescriptions.

“Fourteen billion opioid pills are now dispensed annually in the United States — enough for every adult American to have a bottle of pills. Certainly, the pharmaceutical industry is at fault for decades of misleading information about their products and the medical community bears responsibility for its role in overprescribing these dangerous and addictive drugs, but we remain deeply troubled by the sheer volume of opioids available — volumes that are approved by DEA,” stated Dick Durban who led Democratic senators to contact the DEA this past summer.

The hope is to crack and cut down the doctors who still over-prescribe opioid drugs to patients through the reduced amount of drugs available.