[mmt]

> > Sales of prescription opioids in the U.S. nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2014,1 but there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain Americans report

That, there, is the "money" quote. You've been criticized elsewhere in the thread for the assertion that opiates "don't work" for long-term pain, but that strikes me as a very reasonable summary in the face of this kind of evidence.

Sure, there may be exceptions, but they must be quite rare for the above to remain true. (Some of them may not even be true exceptions, if "intermittent" use for long-term pain actually looks the same as repeated use for short-term pain).