The attitude towards prohibition that your parent comment described is exactly what set the stage for the recent opioid epidemic.

We were just coming out of another era where opioids were restricted to the inhumane point where people with serious problems were left in debilitating pain - to the point where Purdue's lies were accepted because doctors felt genuine sympathy towards the suffering they saw.

There is a happy middle ground. There are people who benefit from opioid medications.

It was bad moral choices by this generation's pharmaceutical companies that caused this outbreak. That is where the fault lies.