The makers of OxyContin may not have set out to get people addicted to the drug, but "their heads were in the sand" when it came to thinking through its "colossal downsides," says American journalist Patrick Radden Keefe.  "For thousands of years there's been this paradox of opioids, that ... they have therapeutic benefits, but also dangers," said Keefe, a staff writer for The New Yorker who has spent years examining the OxyContin crisis.

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