You're right, that makes sense. So the situation is probably that most of the people take nothing and 5% or so takes 6 a day and lives in a permanent state of sedation.
Sedatives are different. Also people who are on painkillers lose the "high" after a while, so for the most part, they are normal functioning people, which is the idea.
Also, as an aside, take into account that there are 5+ million car accidents a year. I would guess that is or at least is one of the leading causes of chronic pain in the US.
