I believe that this is mainly a US (or actually North America to include Canada) issue, in most of the EU (Germany being an exception) opioids are not so common

I believe that this is mainly a US (or actually North America to include Canada) issue, in most of the EU (Germany being an exception) opioids are not so commonly prescribed outside hospitals or as generic painkillers (i.e. for not really serious illnesses) AFAIK. If you check the maps here: https://ppsg.medicine.wisc.edu/ https://ppsg.medicine.wisc.edu/ the phenomenon seems mostly regional (the colour scale on the map makes very little sense, you need to check the single amounts as everywhere (both North America and EU zone is blue but with very different values ) example 2015, "ME minus Methadone": Canada 661 mg/capita US 484 Germany 517 UK 156 France 151 Spain 233 Italy 131