research on opioid crisis (not so much about pain pills!)

At least three quarters of opioid pill abusers and almost all heroin addicts got hooked without ever having been prescribed pain medication for an injury or illness, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Emergency room records show only a fraction — 13% — of opioid overdose victims began taking drugs because of pain, according to the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine. […]

Young adults account for 90% of first time abusers. To protect the next generation from making that mistake, Trump proposes a “massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to want to take drugs in the first place.” The liberal media mock Trump’s proposal as a throwback to the 1980s, but in fact he’s on the mark. […]

In 2012 and 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran hard hitting and graphic ads against smoking, with ex-smokers talking about their own lung disease, cancer, and other miseries.

The ads cut smoking among youth and convinced 400,000 smokers to quit for good. [Investor’s Business Daily]