[fuzzfactor]

For thousands of years the natural opioids morphine & codeine have been almost universally recognized as harmful dependency-inducing substances in their own category, that build a tolerance which can almost never be limited beyond a certain number of years, before the toxicity overcomes any therapeutic benefit there might have been upon initial administration.

After all this time a religious person of many different faiths over the recent centuries might have often said that for long-term use they were put on earth by god for people who can not be expected to recover.

Synthetic opioids are just the modern version which were developed because the natural product itself can not be patented.

Hence "patent medicine".

The habit-forming effect is what made the Sacklers the richest pharmaceutical barons so far.