But when doctors started widely prescribing OxyContin for noncancer pain in the late 1990s, it effectively nationalized the supply, making opioids no longer only a big-city story. “So that any doctor in any small town, under the dispensation of a new FDA-approved prescription, could now suddenly provide opioids to people with low back issues and so on. You read a lot about economic depression and loss of morale, and I’m certain that fuels the epidemic. “But the supply expansion [via OxyContin] came before anything else. And if it hadn’t been for the supply expansion, then this [epidemic] would
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