Drugs prescribed by doctors are extremely likely to cause addiction in a high percentage of their patients. At least eighty percent of heroin addicts today were first exposed to prescription drugs. Prescribed medicines are considered a major gateway drug by a large part of the population. Experts believe that the opioid epidemic started in the 1990s when physicians ignored treated chronic pain. Pharmaceutical companies wanted to increase the same of their pain killers, so they had started to provide doctors with the false information that these drugs could be used without fear of addiction. People that used these drugs started to look for cheaper substitutes which they could easily find on the streets. Around this time, drug dealers wanted
