Sen. Mitch McConnell has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider pulling cheaper generic versions of some pain medicines off the market before they become available to consumers in 2013.

The controversy involves release of prescription opiates in generic form lacking a tamper-resistant feature intended to prevent some abuse of brand name drugs like Oxycontin.

The very best possible outcome of this action is increasing costs for innocent pain sufferers, while the state of Kentucky is already under a severe pain medicine crackdown responsible for a surge in heroin use. The war on drugs has been a particularly expensive failure for Kentucky. This kind of nonsense is good for press releases, but not constituents.