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"Prescription drug abuse and addiction kill far more people in the U.S. every year than all illegal drugs combined."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201404/pre...

This is a meaningless argument if you don't normalize for usage rates. Many times more people are on legal drugs than illegal drugs. I doubt OxyContin kills a higher percentage of its users than heroin.

Also surveillance bias is a problem in these data.

Also, these data include things like acetaminophen overdoses (estimates run from 100 to 1000 deaths per year).

Those overdoses could still be secondary to opioid addiction; there are lots of APAP/hydrocodone and APAP/oxycodone out there.

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