If you want to understand why so many people are taking painkillers, you have to understand why so many people are in so much pain—and psychological pain is as real as physical pain. It is not a coincidence that opiate addiction is dramatically higher in West Virginia—where people have lost their communities, their economic security, and their sense of status—than among (say) the student body at Harvard, despite the fact that on average Harvard students have much better health insurance and so would find it easier to get hold of prescription opiates. The places with the biggest opioid crises
...more
