The figures
The use of oxycodone and other heavy painkillers has risen sharply over the past ten years, and the pattern of overuse is better documented than with most other medications.
Between 2003 and 2018, the number of prescriptions for oxycodone increased from more than 22,000 to more than 450,000 per year. The use of opioids has been increasing again since 2021, after a two-year decline during the corona pandemic.
The opioid trap
As with the other medicines in this file, it usually starts with a justified, sensible decision.
A specialist starts pain medication around an operation or in case of severe pain.
The discharge letter does not always contain a hard stop date or an executable tapering plan.
The GP takes over repeat prescriptions, sometimes without the same clinical context as the hospital had.
With longer use, tolerance, side effects and physical dependence arise.
Tapering can increase pain, anxiety and withdrawal symptoms, which feels like proof that you still need the drug
When waiting, rejection or embarrassment, the temptation of online offers increases.
There is also evidence that the pattern can be broken
In the Arnhem region, the use of short-acting oxycodone fell sharply in three years, simply by streamlining protocols and having doctors, pharmacists and the hospital follow the same agreements. First prescriptions from the hospital fell by more than 60%, and GPs prescribed 61% fewer first prescriptions of short-acting oxycodone.
That is the most important point of this entire file: the medication trap is not an individual weakness. It is a chain that you can redesign.
Warning: counterfeit oxycodone with nitazenes
Since spring 2025, the Trimbos Institute has been warning about counterfeit pills that are sold as oxycodone, but in reality contain nitazenes: synthetic opioids that can be up to forty times stronger than fentanyl. A tiny amount can cause a fatal overdose.
By the end of 2025, at least thirteen deaths and more than twenty serious poisonings had been linked to this in the Netherlands. The actual number is probably higher, because not everyone tests for nitazenes as standard. In April 2026, Trimbos confirmed that the warning is still current.
Bought pills outside a Dutch pharmacy? Do not use them. If you are extremely drowsy, unresponsive, or have slow or non-existent breathing: call 911 immediately and report that it may be contaminated oxycodone. This warning is about illegal and online counterfeit pills, not about oxycodone that has been dispensed and used correctly through a doctor and pharmacy.
In-depth video
Nitazenes explained
The full explanation
Safe stopping and tapering
The risks of buying via Telegram
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Do you recognise this pattern?
Were you or someone around you prescribed oxycodone without ever having a stop date or tapering plan? Share your experience. Not to appoint a doctor, but to make the pattern visible.
Justification and sources
- Trimbos Institute, National Drug Monitor (2025): 110,000 adults (0.8%) also used opioid painkillers without a prescription in 2024; 23% of users did this for more than three months.
- Trimbos Institute / CBS Causes of Death Statistics (2026): 378 deaths caused by drugs or opioid painkillers in 2024, three times as many as in 2014.
- Zorginstituut Nederland (2021): approximately 450,000 Dutch people use it annually oxycodone.
- Nivel / PMC publication: increase from 22,366 to 454,674 oxycodone prescriptions between 2003 and 2018; transmural project in the Arnhem region (Rijnstate) with decreases of up to 62% in first issues of short-acting oxycodone.
- Trimbos Institute / DRUGSinfo.nl: warning of counterfeit oxycodone with nitazenes, last confirmed April 8, 2026.
- NOS (December 13, 2025): at least 13 deaths and 22+ serious poisonings linked to counterfeit medicines containing nitazenes.