Maybe sometimes. Seven or eight years ago, I had a badly ingrown toenail; my doctor removed the left half of it under local anesthesia, and then wrote me a prescription for 30 Vicodin tablets. (I think 3 or 4 would have been plenty; the pain was gone in 2 or 3 days.) Maybe things have changed enough that he wouldn't do that now.

I've had similar experiences with overly speculative opioid prescriptions, and I have to wonder, do the doctors think they're doing you a favor by being generous??

This seems so obvious a factor that I have a hard time believing mere negligence explains the failure to mention it in the article. I've seen a few hit pieces like this now and it seems to me some powerful lobby must be waging a PR war against opioids.