If the number of deaths begins to exceed the rate at which new addicts are being created, then the population of users will diminish.
As long as doctors are prescribing these things like candy, you aren’t going to see the epidemic end. The entire medical system intentionally created these addicts for personal gain. They lied about their addictiveness, gave kick backs to doctors... The people who did this are NOT BETTER than the street dealers giving the first taste for free to children.
There are many people who’s heads should be on PIKES for this... There is absolutely no difference between the people that did this and the gangs that sell drugs on the streets, other than they got they lied to the government and the population about what their drugs were.
Yes, that will happen. This is our modern plague. We create the conditions of our own destruction. in 1340 it was fleas, now its social policy, government policy, even massive fiscal debt supporting the nanny-state and pharma-industrial complex.