As a reminder, Oxy was heavily marketed, (to doctors!) as a "not bad" opioid. As in, not as addictive, not as problematic, and something that can be prescribed more easily and with less worries.
If a doctor comes up and tell you "don't worry about this one, it isn't addictive like the others", and you are in a ton of pain at the time, you are going to thank modern medicine for its new miracle pain drug and accept the prescription.
> but this is taught in every highschool.
And as another reminder, most schools, until recently, just taught that "drugs are bad" and kind of left it at that. They exaggerated some of the down sides, and didn't mention any of the positive experiences.
IMHO South Park actually did the world's best anti pot ad -
"Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but… well, son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored. And it's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything."
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And IMHO messages like that are more useful than what kids are being told.
There is also the social contract side of things - Since around 1950s, if people worked hard they things in return from society: A stable job, a house, the opportunity to raise a family. That social contract is shot to shit, and so it should be no surprise that more and more people are choosing to drop out of society via drugs/games/apathy.