It's troubling the way this article presents the issue. Treating chronic pain is an enormously complex problem that clinicians have to deal with, especially as it gets bound up with collateral pitfalls of drug dependence, politics of health care delivery systems and conflicting pressures from patients, government regulators and others.
While unethical prescribers (not all are physicians) contribute significantly to rising misuse of opioids, the vast majority of practitioners want to do what's best for patients. As the article notes, there are few options for managing chronic pain, leaving opioids the only realistic choice in many instances.
None of the providers I know think opioids are preferable, but more like a necessary evil. They prescribe opioids sparingly, reluctantly, diligently. Patients have told me it's become increasingly difficult to get prescriptions for quite modest doses of opioid agents they've used for years without dose escalation. The tendency to throw babies out with the bathwater is not unique to this situation, but no less problematic.
Blaming pharmaceutical companies doesn't seem a constructive approach. Probably there's a lot of R&D going on in this domain without much success, meaning it's a very hard problem to solve. I'm certain that a major breakthrough would be eagerly marketed, highly likely the profit margins would be huge. Meanwhile, we're left with the status quo, and manufacturers are meeting market demands. Isn't that how our economy works? Pharma sales are already more highly regulated than nearly all other industries, what more should be done?
Few legal drugs are as controlled in the US as schedule II opioids. If there were no such controls it's likely that the number of overdose-related deaths would be higher than it is. No one knows what solution will work, the need to be being careful about changing "rules" should be obvious.
The article's advocacy of "medical marijuana" as an alternative is IMO inappropriate. Simply enough, research on the uses of cannabis components for pain treatment is in very early stages. Specific indications and side-effect risks are inadequately understood. Recommending use of these components as treatments for pain is premature.