The current opioid epidemic – a re-examination of all of its causes

Currently, we experiencing an opioid prescription drug epidemic and the deadly and addicting drugs, overprescribing physicians, deceiving pharmaceutical companies and the government are blamed for this tragedy. However, while all of these have contributed albeit in a minor way to the epidemic, the real cause is never mentioned – namely the drug abuser per se. It has to be realized that certain individuals who are genetically programmed and environmentally influenced will abuse drugs – as they have done so  in the past, doing it now and will be doing so in the future . This paper examines in some detail all of these five factors with recommendations to perhaps minimize this and future epidemics.