This is a very real part of the problem. Physicians who promiscuously prescribed pain-killers and the pharmacies who doled them out are highly regulated (or should have been) and should have been individually identified and disciplined.
Instead this wholesale hysteria brought down upon all prescribers including the legit and very conservative caregivers has put the Sword of Damocles over the chair of every prescriber.
Thus, the chronic-pain sufferer, about 10% of which these drugs are the only real answer, are often left wanting.
Another ham-fisted, government, top-down agency and its regulatory power, attempting hand surgery with an axe.
And just another health care problem that was highly politicized. I even recall one report of some so-called numbers of prescription drug overdoses somehow included those that were illicit, street-drug overdose deaths.
