Deciding that your pain is well managed without opiates has always been a perfectly reasonable and medically-accepted option, and unsurprisingly there has never been any sort of social stigma against people who decline painkillers.

Most to the point, declining to take painkillers does not adversely impact other people's health.

This is not a good analogy.

eta: ironically, the problem with the opioid crisis was not too much regulation and oversight by "the authorities", but too little; too much freedom for doctors to prescribe stronger painkillers, and for patients to request them.