There are a lot of assumptions at work here, (pardon the pun) the main basis of this ASSumption is based on invalid surveys, conducted online without any verification and or face to face interviews which are done in any valid scientific determination. Much like the flawed polls of the 2016 election cycle which proved to be problematic for the political predictions of the political process we now see a illogical jump to conclusions not found in valid scientific evidentiary procedures. Quote, "In the Paper published by Alan B Kruger he states that the focus of the paper is focus on the role of pain and pain medication in the lives of prime age men who are not in the labor force and prime age women who are not in the labor force and not primarily taking care of household responsibilities, because these groups express the greatest degree of distress and dissatisfaction with their lives. "

According to the paper, what follows is apparently what constitutes science these days.

To better understand the role of pain and pain medication in the life of prime age men who are neither working nor looking for work, I conducted a short online panel survey of 571 NLF prime men age 25-54 using an internet panel provided by Survey Sampling Inc, henceforth called the Princeton Pain Survey (PPS).20

That did an online survey of 571 persons and somehow they believe that this is real evidence?

Additionally they state that

Thus, on any given day, 31 percent of NLF prime age men take pain medication, most likely an opioid-based medication. And these figures likely understate the actual proportion of men taking prescription pain medication given the stigma and legal risk associated with reporting taking narcotics.

Consider the statement contained in the quote above.

most likely an opioid-based medication.

Now excuse me but the word most likely does not belong in any kind of scientific document.

Using an online form to gain information and then publish it as if it were valid is just ridiculous.

I cannot begin to understand why a “Real Study” was not conducted.

This paper while well meaning is in effect meaningless because of the lack of proper scientific investigation and procedures.

Additionally the number of Men surveyed, is in itself not a sufficient number to accurately predict any type of medical evidence of prescription drug use as a mediator for the so called, Opioid Crisis. In effect what has happened here is that there has been no scientific distinction between deaths associated with multiple drug use and prescription pain medication use. Even The CDC admits that they did not separate prescription drug deaths from illegal IV drug use, (Heroin) There is a need to call this what it is.

You can never expect to solve a problem when you are not willing to address what the problem actually is.

The problem is multiple illegal drug use involving IV Heroin, street drugs where the contents of those drugs is unknown.

Alcohol use along with multiple drug use most often is the common denominator for drug overdose deaths. How can anyone be expected to take this kind of nonsense seriously when the body of science as a whole "lumps" all conditions and all manner of drug induced deaths together and then "Label" it as a Crisis.

This is simply the War on Drugs 2.0