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Notes -
Opioids definitely do affect different people differently. I've had them prescribed once to take after a surgery. I took one dose immediately after the surgery and decided I'd rather no pain medication at all than a second dose. (Pretty sure I took ibuprofen, not nothing.) I've discussed this with others and gather this isn't an entirely uncommon reaction, although certainly far from a majority opinion.
My experience was extremely similar. When I got my wisdom teeth removed, they gave me a massive bottle of vicodin. Dozens of doses, apparently intended to be taken daily for months. I took two doses: one several hours after the surgery once the initial anesthesia wore off, and then another two days after the surgery when the pain became very acute. The rest of the pills in that bottle went untouched.
It occurred to me how easy it would have been, and how profitable, to sell the rest of the pills. Although I’ve never used the “Dark Web”, nor do I have any familiarity with the sorts of websites or venues people use to buy and sell drugs, I can’t imagine it would have been difficult to figure out. And, sadly, there is at least one member of my family who would have taken them off my hands if I’d offered. I also did not want to throw them away in my dumpster, for fear of attracting a swarm of local homeless. I ended up returning the bottle of pills to the surgery center, over their objections, and told them to figure out what to do with it.
On the one hand, this could be read as a story about how easy it is for people to inadvertently become addicted to opioids; I went in for a minor surgery, was given a huge bottle of pain pills by a trusted medical professional, and told to use them to my heart’s content. I was fortunate in that I did not end up experiencing very much significant recurring pain as a result of my surgery, and therefore was not seriously tempted to use more than what was absolutely necessary. If my surgery had produced significant recurring pain, who’s to say that I would have had the fortitude and self-control to resist burning through that whole bottle of pills?
On the other hand, even if I had done so, I could not plausibly have claimed that it was inadvertent, or that I didn’t understand the risks. Every thinking adult with even a cursory understanding of current events is aware of the gravity of opioid addiction. Now, if there had been something laced into those pills without my knowledge - if I’d thought I was taking immunosuppressants and it turned out they had fentanyl in them - this would obviously be beyond my control. My sense is that people who talk a lot about the “opioid crisis” tend to imply that this type of situation - people taking opioids without realizing it, and becoming addicted - is very common. My naïve sense is that probably the much more common scenario is more similar to my experience, wherein people are given massively unnecessary and inflated doses of pain medication by doctors, and fail to exercise proper self-control over how much of that medication to use.
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