This idea never rested on a solid scientific foundation, and it simply wasn’t true. Pharmaceutical companies played a central role in fostering this misimpression, downplaying the risks as they aggressively marketed their painkillers. Drugmakers handed megaphones to physicians who celebrated the benefits of opioids and embraced more liberal prescribing of narcotics, anointing the doctors “key opinion leaders.” These physicians presented themselves in the manner of evangelists, giving talks designed to break down resistance to opioid therapy. In 1997, a North Carolina pain specialist named Alan
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