It would seem useful to unpack this. The first issue is about **access**; opioids are essential medicines (on the World Health Organization's list) for pain management, and cancer patients in many countries have insufficient access to them ("approximately 80% of the world's population estimated to have insufficient access to analgesics for pain relief"). The second issue is that of **overprescription**, abuse, and death by overdose (devastating in North America, in particular due the abominable commercial practices of the Sackler family). As this editorial in The Lancet https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(17)30704-0/fulltext concludes, however, these two issues must be addressed separately: > What must be avoided at all costs is the demonisation of opioids and inadvertent addicts. Patients in genuine need must retain access to pain relief, and analgesic provision worldwide must increase to end unjustifiable suffering. Patients must not be forced to endure ameliorable pain, or become victims of addiction, through governmental inaction.

Thanks Fil for this clarification! I should have included more context about this visual before publishing this visual. For those interested this is one of the graphic used in larger story on the subject. Read about it here in French https://medor.coop/nos-series/la-douleur-des-belges/opioides-datavisualisations/ or here in English http://medor-opioids.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/

where did you get the data?

No sure it was the exact source, but there are similar reportings in this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8599097/