The opioid epidemic is an amazing example of human psychology and the power of a visual. More people die from it every year than Vietnam, yet there's been no large public outcry to resolve the situation because it isn't right in your face like a 9/11 or pearl harbor. Even ignoring the human impact and just going to economics, those lost lives will cost the US billions in lost productivity over time, yet nobody really…
People used to think that heroin or other substances were inherently addictive in and of themselves. This was because of experiments on mice in Skinner boxes. But that is not how addiction works. Addiction is, in great measure, the result of animals being unhappy and trying to do something about it.
This has been proven both in humans and in mice. Mice, and humans, generally don't get addicted when they have good things to do.
To focus on the opioid side of our social dysfunction is just as useless as focusing on any other SYMPTOM of dysfunction.
When I hear people talking about how horrible the epidemic is, I can't stop helping thinking of a flu analogy:
This sniffling epidemic is really terrible. We should ban sniffling because sniffling people suffer, we need to protect them* if they sniffle. But let's not worry about people washing their hands... that's unrelated.
* Generally implied is that by protecting people it means putting people in cages if they disobey our social commands.