Prescription drugs are the worst, way worse than street drugs. What the pharmaceutical industry has been allowed to get with and do to our society over the last few decades is absolutely criminal and close to treasonous. They've essentially flooded our streets with synthetic heroin destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. I'm behind virtually any attempt to combat this evilness.
This is a common refrain which I have cause to wonder about.
I am troubled by an extremely painful condition called cervical stenosis which is a growth of bone spurs inside the vertebra which compress on the spinal cord when lying down. Because the surgical approach is relatively dangerous my doctor has given me the option of pain medication. So I've been taking 5 to 10 mg of Percocet (oxycodone) every night before lying down, which gets me to sleep.
I've been taking this much maligned drug for over two years now and I have absolutely none of the symptoms associated with addiction. I don't crave it. I don't derive any pleasure from it aside from the effective numbing of pain. And I don't feel the need to increase dosage above the 5 to 10 mg regimen.
So maybe the problem with this drug, as well as other prescription pain killers, is the tendency of some users to deliberately take more than the prescribed dosage to induce narcotic euphoria. Also, it is an acknowledged medical fact that some people are inclined to addiction while others are not -- and I apparently am not. That would account for why my late wife and I were able to just stop using marijuana in 1982 when Reagan escalated the drug war. We both had been regular users for about fifteen years and had no problem with just stopping, whereas I frequently hear people insist they are "addicted" to marijuana, which conflicts with the well-studied fact that cannabis is not an addictive substance.
It appears to me the problem with all drugs, including alcohol, rests with the individual user. It seems some people are inclined to addiction while others are not. So it might be worthwhile to develop a means of determining who is susceptible to addiction and who is not, thereby serving as a red light to those who might wish to try using some drug.