A top DEA official is calling on federal regulators to impose tougher rules on the way pharmaceutical companies market narcotic painkillers to physicians, noting that such drugs are involved in more than twice as many deaths as heroin and cocaine combined. Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion Control, urged the Food and Drug Administration in a letter to adopt stricter limits on OxyContin, Vicodin and similar medications to "safeguard the American public."
