maybe sometimes physical therapy should be the prescription for back pain
Part of the issue is they want people to get back to work in a typically short sighted fashion. Real treatment requires time where you cannot really work most jobs, where you do go through the slow process of physical therapy, and requires a social safety net that'll provide for you while it goes on. But if you load them up on pain killers and they can go back to work for awhile, before addiction takes too much of a toll.
the Americans medical system really should just stop deliberately getting people hooked on opioids
This is mainly an American problem because one of their major institutions decided "fuck it I'll get a bunch of people addicted to drugs."
maybe sometimes physical therapy should be the prescription for back pain
Part of the issue is they want people to get back to work in a typically short sighted fashion. Real treatment requires time where you cannot really work most jobs, where you do go through the slow process of physical therapy, and requires a social safety net that'll provide for you while it goes on. But if you load them up on pain killers and they can go back to work for awhile, before addiction takes too much of a toll.