“G*d damn The Pusher”
I would agree “D*d damn The Pusher” sentiment.
And I do feel sympathy for people who get hooked on these things, and also for their friends and family.
And I DO believe there should be avenues to get help.
But I abhor giving these addicts the victimhood status of someone who contracts a disease they didn’t ask for.
The majority of these cases of overdose and addiction are cases of people using the drugs recreationally, not people to whom they have been prescribed appropriately who need them for a real medical condition.
One has only to look at the media and see the pictures of these people who they report as overdosing on a daily basis. They are almost all people who are relatively young and otherwise healthy. And you aren’t getting hooked on one prescription with no refills (which is how it is normally done) that is written after knee or tooth surgery.
It isn’t to say there aren’t irresponsible physicians...there are. And they should be severely punished.
But over-prescribing these drugs is NOT the standard of care, far from it.