Meanwhile, short-acting opiates like heroin have a withdrawal period that lasts about a week. Is it any wonder methadone patients switch back to heroin when they try to quit for good?
Mark my words, this isn't going away or getting any better. You can prosecute doctors, regulate all you want, burn fields of poppies. None of it will affect the demand nor the supply. You can't price or regulate someone out of an addiction.
If people get cut off wholesale from their prescriptions because doctors are being prosecuted for prescribing pain medication, they'll turn to heroin. Which will be available, regardless of all the opium seized, regardless of cartels dismantled.
Just like when Oxycontin went under a formulation change making it resistant to abuse, which also caused the price to spike to a dollar per milligram.
People turned to heroin because it was cheaper, more potent, and much more widely available than pharmaceuticals could ever be.
If you think pill junkies are bad, wait until you look down an alley to see a heroin junkie injecting another junkie in the jugular because all her veins are blown out. Watch your step, though, lest you get a syringe in your foot.