Doctors are often accused of being at the very heart of the opioid epidemic – overprescribing opioids and not checking thoroughly enough how their patients react to the drugs. But is that really a fair criticism? CGTN's The Agenda program spoke to Complex Pain Medication consultant, Cathy Stannard, who said doctors should shoulder "some" blame for the current opioid epidemic but added that in the early 2000s, there was "fairly aggressive marketing of opioid products to pain specialists." She also said that "long-term pain is resistant to most treatments."