Purdue LIED about it. They told doctors it wasn't addictive. Doctors believed them because the FDA gave it a label saying it had less than a 1% addiction rate. That was a total lie. The FDA official who gave them the unprecedented label for Class II opioid quit the FDA a few years later and went to work for Purdue. They published infomercials with people who had never used it lying about how wonderful it was and how it had changed their lives.
But it's obvious that you are a proud ignoramus who doesn't require any actual information to form a fact-free opinion.
Add in the Obama Administration’s implementation of the ACA to kick it up another notch, by gigging doctors that didn’t overprescribe pain killers.
“Merck Index”, Tenth Edition, 1983
“6827. Oxycodone.
....
Caution: Abuse leads to habituation or addiction.”
I find the claim no one knew a heroin/morphine derivative wasn’t addictive.
Nor do I believe the narrative you recite.
It sounds ludicrous.
For whatever reason, FR has been infested by degenerate libertarians who believe that vending machine narcotics is good and subsequent overdose deaths are acceptable.