That's just doing the same number fuckery in the other direction.

76B doses being a six month supply would mean 416M doses a day for America's 50M people with chronic pain (not all of which have pain conditions suited to opiate treatment, incidentally). Almost ten doses a day for each and every one one of them?

The 76B is over 6 years.

And it's by dosage units, so if your doctor says "take two every four hours", you'll be consuming 12 each day.

The number isn't that shocking.

I'm contesting the "76B doses is about a 6 month script for every patient with chronic pain in the US" statement, as well as the idea that every chronic pain patient needs opiate treatment.

> if your doctor says "take two every four hours"

That'd be weird for an Q12H drug, wouldn't it?

This is all opioids prescriptions. 12 hour dosing is a small fraction of that. Most opioids are dosed every 4 hours.

Not every patient needs opioids.