If you look at it from a business perspective, it's much more efficient to smuggle stronger drugs. The problem is that Illegal drugs do not have the same quality control as regulated medicine, when one is 50 times stronger small mistakes are deadly.

There's no easy solution for opiate addicts if they want to get high. I do think law and society need to view/ treat addiction has a health issue rather than criminal.

The biggest problem I've had with my medicine is from Naproxen (a NSAID), for around a year I suffered from Iron deficiency anaemia (I was prescribed Iron supplements to try and mask the issue), I still lost a lot of weight and more severe bleeding. To the extent that a different doctor was so concerned she wanted to rush me to hospital. I'm now diagnosed as a coeliac which I believe is caused by the long term Naproxen use (the jury is still out on the relation, one doctor swore blindly that there is no correlation between NSAIDs and coeliac disease), I'm the first in my family and it's meant to be hereditary..

Now I only use a topical NSAID gel, which is another reason for needing stronger medication. One good thing about switching to patches is they have less impact on your gastrointestinal tract. Strangely, I seem to have no issue with constipation (a common opiate side-effect).