Yes there is a crisis, children are being given pain medications and other pharmaceuticals for minor procedures and it is not just the doctors that are providing them.
I am focused in one of my businesses on Caregiving and that includes pain medications, and another is on Addiction. A dear friend of mine who is more or less confined to a wheelchair needs pain medications and has artificial hips and shoulders and without them he would suffer needlessly. If you understood the degree of dispensing from doctors where other routes can be taken you might see the amount of over prescribing that is going on.
Fentanyl is one used in the shall I say “recreational” mode or by those who have become numb to lesser medications and are amping up what they use. no one in my view is trying to remove them from the equation, and I am involved in this daily and on a very personal level.
I honor your opinion but the facts are there, and doctors in many cases are the worst and dispensing drugs legally that are nearly impossible to break free from especially cold turkey like Benzos. Fentanyl is now yesterdays news as there is a new version that is multiples stronger.
One step at a time, but they do have their uses. My sister died from Multiple Myeloma and at the end she took medication for the pain.
There’s no easy answer and that’s the problem. Good doctors struggle with the risks and bad doctors are too plentiful. The government is too quick to legislate draconian measures in response to anything.
I have no problem executing dealers, including “doctors.” Yet, I know many people who need strong medicine. My father had cancer and took morphine at the end. It was the only thing that helped. Not that it was perfect, but it alleviated the pain.