The reason you see less acute discussion is simple: there are no singular events to highlight the policy failures. It is a slow motion car crash.
I absolutely have the same kind of passionate feelings on this one as gun control, perhaps more because there are more realistic and achievable ways to alter the trajectory. But the over medication of our nation is a long term trend that ties directly into many monied interests. Things like the fact we allow medical advertizing, unlike most other countries, the pharmecutical companies that give preferential development to drugs for mediation of symptoms rather than treatment of underlying issues, that we’ve seen the financial incentives distort what treatments are offered, all are symptoms of national failure.
The supply is a problem, but not necessarily a cause. But the amelioration of pain is a simple thing to do when medical care for many people in the hardest hit regions is invariably tied to economic downturns that make medical care unaffordable. Many of these people live in states that did not accept Medicare expansion, or set up exchanges.
But like so many things it slips just below the threshold of major coverage. Always below the surface, but listing the names of the overdosed dead isn’t as splashy as bellowing about the blowhard in the oval offices latest disgrace of our nation. It is a dispersed story, which makes it harder to tell in real time. Such things require the long lens of hindsight, which our soundbte culture is terrible at comprehending.