The problem of opioid addiction is more complex than lawmakers, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the media would have us believe.

Pressuring doctors who treat pain patients to prescribe fewer opioids may reduce the amount of opioids prescribed. While that doesn’t decrease the need for opioids, it may drive people who need pain medication to the streets to find relief.

Today, opioids are the only effective, affordable treatment for some chronic pain conditions. They certainly are an imperfect medication associated with significant risks for some patients. But they are the best tools doctors have for delivering compassionate treatment to many people with intractable pain.

People in pain who cannot receive the care they deserve are forced to choose between suffering, using unregulated drugs that they obtain illegally, or ending their own lives. This has been the unintended, albeit predictable, negative consequence of regulators’ current best efforts to solve the opioid crisis.

Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), may emerge as a hero who helps find far more effective strategies for managing the opioid crisis. He recognizes that the opioid crisis, in part, is a pain crisis, and he understands that we will go a long way toward solving the opioid crisis when we find better solutions to the pain crisis.

You may recognize Collins (who has earned both an M.D. and a Ph.D.) as the director of the Human Genome Project. In a recent article, Mother Jones referred to him as a genius, and few would disagree.

Collins told Mother Jones reporter Julia Lurie, “The goal really needs to be to find nonaddictive but highly potent pain medicines that can replace the use of opioids given the terrible consequences that surround their use. This will be particularly important for people who have chronic pain, where we really don’t have effective treatments now.”

He is exactly correct with his analysis. The solution to the opioid crisis must include developing safer and more effective medication for pain. A small step forward would be for Congress to pass a law requiring all opioids to have abuse deterrent properties. Abuse deterrent formulations have been shown to cause a significant reduction in overdoses and rates of addiction. Passing such legislation would be analogous to the 1968 federal law, Title 49 of the United States Code, Chapter 301, Motor Vehicle Safety Standard that required all vehicles to be fitted with seat belts.

Mother Jones also reported, “At the Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Conference last month, Collins announced a public-private partnership, in which the NIH will collaborate with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies to develop solutions to the crisis.” This seems to be a rational and progressive decision. In Collins’ words, “While NIH can do a lot of the good science, and we can accelerate [it] if we have resources, we aren’t going to be the ones making pills. Many of the large-scale clinical trials are not done generally by us but by the drug companies. A successful outcome here—in terms of ultimately getting rid of opioids and the deaths that they cause—would not happen without full engagement by the private sector.”

Collins is saying what I would hope to hear from the NIH director, and I’m cautiously optimistic that he can be a part of the solution to the opioid crisis.

Unfortunately, the recent proposed budget from the Trump administration slashes funding for NIH and many of its important programs. Innovation in the field of pain and new therapies will require more, rather than less, funding.

Let’s hope the Trump administration sees the wisdom of Collins’ strategy and lets Pharma participate in finding the answers we need. Today, many people blame Pharma for the opioid crisis. But I’m convinced that it will take Pharma, in conjunction with the NIH, to solve the problem.