It appears Purdue Pharma took their lesson from the Bayer company who successfully marketed Heroin beginning in 1898 as a "cough medicine and pain reliever".    Heroin was written about in medical journals and studies endorsed heroin for treating asthma, bronchitis, phthisis and tuberculosis. Free samples were sent out by the thousands to physicians in Europe and the US.  Between 1899 and 1905, at least 180 clinical works on Heroin were published around the world.  In 1906, the American Medical Association approved heroin for medical use. 

The most telling fact about Heroin is how its name was derived.  In the Bayer laboratory, in testing the "workers loved it, some saying it made them feel "heroic" (heroisch)". http://www.opioids.com/heroin/heroinhistory.html     The name "Heroin" was born. 

Moving the clock forward, today we have an active ingredient called oxycodone that is essentially interchangeable with Heroin for both therapeutic and misuse potential.  OxyCodone is the active ingredient of OxyContin. 

From a logical perspective, how did a chemical similar to Heroin in today's knowledgeable and aware society so masterfully get passed off as a product to treat the fabricated notion that pain is being undertreated?   How long are the intellectual elite in this country going to allow a product that makes one feel heroic to freely be distributed on our streets in every community in America?  When is the mainstream going to ask what "undertreated pain" means?   That catch phrase has been used to create the growing opium epidemic in every community in our country.