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This is only because "drugs" and "tobacco" are different and distinct categories.

Tobacco use kills >7x as many people in the US every day/week/month as all opiate overdoses.



I hate tobacco, and don't get me started on last century's Big Tobacco debacle, but at least in this century the people who choose to start using tobacco should know what they are getting into.

Many of the people who started on legally prescribed opioids didn't know how addictive and dangerous they were, and the Sacklers are responsible for that.


I find it hard to believe that any adult that knows smoking is dangerous and addictive doesn't know that opiate prescription pain pills are addictive and dangerous.


In this case, they were intentionally misrepresenting the risk of addiction to doctors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/

If your doctor tells you it's safe and non-addictive and will ease your suffering, I'm willing to bet you'll believe them.


I wonder how much of this overall problem in society is a result of this misinformation they spread via the sales channel, and how much is just that opiates are super fucking addictive (regardless of what you do or don't know about them beforehand).


This is completely irrelevant, and detracts from the issue at hand. You could see precedent from a non-settlement in the case of opioids bend back around and open up the avenue for meaningful tobacco reform.

That all just got sacrificed.


I believe this ratio would be smaller if you count opportunity cost: drugs kill more younger people.




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