Which gens did you find to be most devastated by the Opioid Crisis? Obviously the really old gen x that are like 60 now didn't really get hit that hard. But late gen x early gen y seem like they may have gotten hit the hardest? I mean I'm talking before fentanyl and weird research chemicals when people could still get Pills, like oxycodone and dilaudid etc. and real heroin. Obviously later millennials and early gen z were just stupid and got addicted to dumb chemicals that fucked them up and killed them. They never even got to experience Real Drugs so the crisis was different for them. And of course it was mainly driven by consoles and cliques.
Nah I think your timeline is off. Oxocodone pills were big for late gen x and early gen y ime before they clamped down on them legally (gave less prescriptions cut down pill mills) and made them harder to abuse (non crushable formulations), and also before they got cut with research chems. Prescription opiate wave in general was late 1990s through early 2010s. Early gen x wasn't big into pills really any more than boomers although obviously it was there. I know for sure I know plenty of people who are around 60 who say this. And I think the idea that fentanyl is just milennials not late millenials is off, people born 1987-1992 were doing regular heroin (even if it had some fent not full on fent with designer chems) up till like 2014 or whatever. I think around 2013-2014 was the major shift when suddenly everything was just fent.
Another thing in terms of the pills, I'm sure a lot of boomers and early gen x died from them, but they are people getting on them later in life (exposed through chronic pain treatment). I'm talking about the cohort who grew up with them. This would be people born from like 1980-1994 iirc.