The fourfold increase in opioid deaths between 2000 and 2017 rivals even the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis for America. Why did it happen? Measures of demand for pain relief – physical pain and despair – are high and in many cases rising, but their increase was nowhere near as large as the increase in deaths. The primary shift is in supply, primarily of new forms of allegedly safer narcotics. These new pain relievers flowed in greater volume to areas with more physical pain and mental health impairment, but since their apparent safety was an illusion, opioid deaths followed. By the end of the 2000s, restrictions on legal opioids led to further supply-side innovations, which created the burgeoning illegal market that accounts for the bulk of opioid deaths today. Because opioid use is easier to start than end, America's opioid epidemicis likely to persist for some time.

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当创新出错时：技术倒退和阿片类药物流行

2000 年至 2017 年间阿片类药物死亡人数增加了四倍，甚至可以与 COVID-19 大流行相媲美，成为美国的健康危机。为什么会这样？对缓解疼痛的需求——身体疼痛和绝望——很高，而且在许多情况下还在上升，但它们的增长远不及死亡人数的增长那么大。主要转变是供应，主要是据称更安全的新型麻醉品。这些新的止痛药大量流入身体疼痛和心理健康障碍较多的地区，但由于它们表面上的安全性是一种幻觉，阿片类药物的死亡随之而来。到 2000 年代末，对合法阿片类药物的限制导致供应方面的进一步创新，这创造了蓬勃发展的非法市场，占当今阿片类药物死亡的大部分。因为阿片类药物的使用比结束更容易开始，美国'