Go look at opioid prescriptions by country. Europe is way lower than the US. Plenty of anecdotes about how hard it is to get opioid prescriptions in Europe.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just it's lower than the US, yet less religious, which pretty much blows up OP's thesis.

But you said "pain medication", many forms of which are sold OTC in Europe just like basically everywhere else. Now that you've narrowed it to "opioids", sure...

Opioids are only really safe to use in a hospital, by and large.

The exception seems to be fentanyl, which gets handed out to old ladies with dodgy hips who chug it like milk.