@Antst
I think in some ways your posts tip too far into the personal responsibility column. You should take into account the criminality of the Sackler organisation, which promoted painkillers without regard to the damage they knew they were doing, and the venality of many in the medical profession, who took the incentives and became part of a very evil business.
For every addict there's a pusher. For every addiction, there's a weakness or pain the addict is trying to heal. Yes, there are better ways to heal a weakness or deal with pain and hurt, and let's face it, with mental illness they maybe don't think they have.
In the case of painkillers, some of the pushers wore white coats. It has burgeoning from there, of course, but back in the inception of the painkiller epidemic, people trusted doctors more than they should have.
There are girls and boys my children grew up with in a comfortable middle class suburb in the US who were prescribed painkillers when they suffered injuries playing sports - torn achilles tendons, MCL injuries, broken collar bones, shattered ankles, etc. Some lived to tell the tale. Some did not. Some are living subsequent lives that are a shadow of what their lives could have been.
These kids didn't drive to the nearby open air drug markets in tbe run down part of the city next door. They went to expert doctors. They took the medication they were prescribed. Then for some it all went horribly wrong, for reasons that in my observation included sheer chance.