There were three reasons that pharmaceutical companies were allowed to sell the drug with few restraints, according to Herzberg.

The first involved the “Reagan revolution,” which involved deregulation and “unleashing the power of business.” He added: “Conservatives argued that the FDA was killing people by taking too long to bring drugs to the markets.”

The second driving force behind the opioid crisis, according to Herzberg, was the rebound of pharma’s reputation. Drugs such as the antidepressant Prozac helped “pharma get its groove back, and had the science behind it.”

The third reason was a movement to “change the way physicians responded to pain as a medical problem,” which in turn led to prescribing opioids to ease the suffering of cancer patients.