The Sackler narrative was BS.
Purdue never had a large Market share, it was about 4% or so. .
Prescription opioids have gone down more than 60+% since peaking in 2012 but Opioid ODs are at record levels due to un- regulated illicit opioids.
Addiction rates for opioids are around 1% certainly less than 5% and less than alcohol.
The few that were addicted to prescription opioids cannot account for the record opioid ODs; this was all illegal opioids.
If prescription opioids were a major cause of addiction and OD deaths, we should have seen a drop on opioid ODs. But of course we haven’t.
People always looks for easy explanations and scapegoats. The government always will blame-shift.
The government is expert at blame shifting. In the 1980s before big pharma and the insurance companies colluded, tying physician’s hands, I was taught that patients became addicted while in ICU and part of the care was titrating and treating that as they recovered. Now, they’re just discharged to deal with it on their own mostly. I’m still waiting for terpene compounding and sane cannabis dispensing.