We know of at least one recently arrested Kentucky physician who apparently prescribed opioids to Facebook friends who would then drop by his home to pick them up. If you saw that April announcement of arrests from the work of the drug abuse task forces in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia, then you are already familiar with the lurid details of Tennessee's "Rock Doc" and the physician operated Ohio pill mill, allegedly dispensing 1.75 million opioid pills in a two year period.
If you were shocked, so was I. So should we all be. But were you also shocked that the drug abuse task force targets were all prescribers with no apparent focus on the actual physical dispensers such as pharmacists and drug companies, all of who have a duty to monitor extraordinarily high use. But, maybe you weren't surprised if you know that most Americans appear to place the blame for the opioid epidemic on prescribers and not on others.
Personally, I see this problem as one with considerable complexity, involving the cooptation of all kinds of people: illegal consumers of opioids, consumers of opioids, the drug companies, prescribers of all sorts, pharmacists. But offering complex answers is not in vogue.
Missouri State of Mind 