The Minnesota Senate on a strong vote (59-6) this afternoon passed a bill to ramp up Minnesota’s fight against the opioid epidemic. It would assess a controversial annual license fee on drug manufacturers and distributors, but some say doctors bear responsibility as well. Mendota Heights Democrat and physician Matt Klein says, “At the end of the day, no matter what a pharmaceutical representative tells you, as a doctor when you sign a prescription you put your own name at the bottom.” Chaska Senator and Doctor Scott Jensen fired back there’s elaborate system for approving medications and “perhaps physicians who’ve recommended Tylenol should be responsible for the poisoning that occurred in the 1980s…. And quaaludes — oh my stars, quaaludes were a wonderful drug, weren’t they? Yeah. Physicians resisted for a long time.”