It's not mentioned in the article, but were the people who are addicted initially prescribed opioids for pain relief? Or did they initially try them recreationally?
Once the prescribed regime is broken, and the psychological restraint is broken, too, there's little left to stop the usage from spiraling up, to an overdose.
Marketed: 120mg over 12 hours or 80mg over 8 hours
Reality: People that take the 120mg over 12 hours realize it only lasts 8 hours thus they are taking 40mg more than they should be on the schedule that makes sense to them to avoid pain.
Rather than taking 40mg at the end of the day, the drugs companies caution doctors to prescribe more medication initially rather than give any indication that the drug only lasts for 8 hours.
They care more about their approach to marketing, than the efficacy of the prescription schedule.
It's this that creates addicts: the extreme high of the unneeded extra initial dosage, followed by a lower low when the drug runs out.
Remember 9/11? Imagine that many people dying from a preventable tragedy every 4 weeks in the US. Because that's what happened in 2016 with opioid addiction.
It's a serious problem that is killing people, and it's worth taking a shot at without being shouted down every time by someone who thinks you're trying to take their pills away.
That's incredibly stupid and illegal in all but one other country in the world.
My apologies if I was wrong. I believe I got it from the nytimes article on the topic published a few months ago.
Would you care to update Wikipedia (and cite your source)? They only list the US, NZ, and Brazil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/sunday-review/ask-your-do... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising