Why don't doctors simply stop prescribing these drugs?
Because a lot of people have lives filled with chronic pain:
post-surgical pain, spinal/lower back pain, cancer pain, arthritis pain
neurogenic pain (pain caused by nerve damage), etc.
How so? I've used Oxycontin before. I used it for one week, as prescribed, and it helped me recover from a painful medical issue. I'm grateful it was available to me. For the photographer profiled in this piece to take zero responsibility for her predicament, particularly since she's struggled with opiod and other types of addiction currently and in the past, is absurd. She's in effect saying, "I abused this drug, so…
The profiled photographer does not call for a ban on OxyContin, she argues that they require much more regulation than they currently have. I don't see how the fact that you are apparently one of the many people who don't get easily addicted, and she is one of the many who do, gives you the authority to say that she took "zero responsibility. Not sure what relevance alcohol and tobacco have in this. In America, both substances are heavily relugated, and these regulations were ostensibly in response to fears about their threat to health.