Addiction to painkillers.

"Treating chronic pain is another whole new ball game". Indeed. And not everyone gets addicted. In fact, I suspect it is a small minority. That's not to say addiction to prescription drugs isn't a problem, but I think the DM, as usual, is blowing it out of proportion with one extreme example.

'Addiction to medicine' has been around for a long time. I was watching a bit of "The Carpenters" (movie) on telly the other night and the siblings' mother dishes out Quaaludes to her son when he can't sleep due to all the touring. He objects, and she responds, "But they're not drugs, they're prescribed medication". Yeah, right. And they were just one of the drugs that killed Elvis Presley and I'm sure many others. Many of the side effects of some drugs were swept under the carpet, diazepam (Valium) being another one. There is an advert for Ativan from the 1980s that says "Doctors knows best" and it took I think another decade or two for it to sink in that they too produce dependence. Bit like smoking really.

Treating chronic pain is another whole ball game, and I do believe that many, many people are discharged from hospital with a painkiller habit. And it is a slow and drawn out process to come off them, once the patient realises and acknowledges their addiction anyway. Difficult question.

This article seems to infer that this is new information but has been around for at least twenty years to my knowledge. To cut down and come off the addictive pain medication can take one month for each year. Some medication is almost impossible to come off but is still prescribed because it does a good job in the right circumstances.