An addiction is only a problem if you stop having access to the drug. It used to be the case (I don't know about now amid the anti-opioid mania) that doctors di

An addiction is only a problem if you stop having access to the drug. It used to be the case (I don't know about now amid the anti-opioid mania) that doctors didn't bother trying to avoid opiate addiction in patients who were in their last few months of years of life. The supply is assured, the benefits are obvious, the drugs are cheap (though some opiates are expensive because of massive research spending on making them less addictive!), and the patient is never going to experience withdrawal in the context of hospice care. Alcohol withdrawal is just as unpleasant and more likely to kill you than opiate withdrawal, but for no particularly good reason you can't buy oxycodone at the corner store. The failure is on all of us for creating a society in which being addicted to opiates will ruin your life. There's no reason this has to be the case.