> But recent studies estimate that 21 to 29 percent of patients prescribed opioids end up misusing them, and the rate of addiction actually ranges between 8 and 12 percent.

Apart from the problems about how opioids are prescribed that were touched on in the article, one of the big problems with how opioids and other potentially addictive drugs are prescribed is that there's incredibly poor eduction around addiction, and a deep societal stigma against addiction.

Drug dependance and addiction isn't a moral or mental failing. It can (and does) happen to the most virtuous and intelligent people. Patients aren't educated to recognise the symptoms of beginning dependence and addiction, and if they do recognise it, they're reluctant to communicate this with their doctor for fear of being cut off entirely. Instead of being open and up front when they start to develop a problem, because of stigma and fear of being labelled a junkie, people will hide their behaviour, causing further problems. Also, because of the attached stigma, friends and family will often be reluctant to raise any concerns they have.

Your kind of response is exactly the kind of attitude and stigma that furthers the problem.

In raw numbers (so this is not a probability), half as many as alcohol.

https://www.caron.org/blog/2019/05/alcohol-is-killing-more-p...

Any serious research to back that up? But even then I have to ask so what? What does that have to do with anything? I never claimed that alcohol isn't killing people or that this is a problem that must reduce attention to other problems

My source cites numbers for opioid and and alcohol deaths according to the Center for Disease Control. Anchoring opioid deaths against alcohol provides a frame of reference for many people, since alcohol is so ubiquitous in human culture.

I tried googling for the odds of becoming addicted to those substances and couldn't readily find anything for either. Hopefully someone else sees this and can shed some light, because it would be interesting to me as well.

Calculating long-term effects is a lot harder and ambiguous than thing easy to measure like ODs, for example that post includes cardiovascular diseases and cancer but did they compare how many drink alcohol and exercise vs those who don't? And afterwards compare people that don't exercise vs people that drink alcohol and exercise, and people that exercise that never drink alcohol vs people who exercise that drink it each weekend? Are there differences between people that drink pure alcohols (Vodka, Whisky) vs non-pure ones (beer), and also how much is enough drinking to notice those negative symptoms, once a year? once a month?