Given the number/percentage of people who don't read contracts, warranties, & other kinds of documentation, it shouldn't be surprising that they don't read prescription inserts either. Folks on support groups/sites like this are IME (to paraphrase an emminent Yogi), "Savvier than the average bear," yet we still get a buttload of questions about prescription meds—many whose answers can readily be found on those inserts, via goggle, etc.

Inserts only include information the pharmaceutical companies want, or are required (by an FDA that is heavily lobbied/influenced by those same pharmaceutical companies) to include. Some pertinent information (like the magnitude of dependence issues) is not necessarily known or divulged until years later (we seem to be amidst that process now), and inadequacies in the reporting system have further obfuscated matters.

I think most people trust their physicians' medical opinions, judgment, and decisions—as they should be able to—that's largely what we hire/go to them for. Medicine is a diverse and complicated field, and the doctor-patient relationship is based largely on trust & confidence.

I'm not suggesting blind acquiescence/obeyence, though that's what many people do, just as they blindly trust/acquiesce to gub'mint, clergy, etc.

Things are changing—due in no small part IMO to the advent of the internet. Information is available that just a generation ago was hidden away in medical libraries.

It's fortunate that you've never had medications "forced" on you. There are, of course, different levels/degrees of "force". Before Lyrica (pregabalin) went generic, it was common for insurance companies to deny it outright, or insist that patients try gabapentin (an older, cheaper, and in some cases less effective medication) first. That's still true when doctors could be prescribing newer, better meds, but insurance companies won't pay for them, and patients must make do with older (and sometimes less efficacious) meds. I have an older male friend with low T (so low as to pose medical complications/risks). His insurance will pay for some types of testosterone prescriptions, but not the one(s) that are most efficaceous. Another kind of "force" exists in the treatment of pain, with opioid vs. non-opioid medications (that's a very complex issue—one that has given rise to its own term: politics of pain). In my own case, in order to get the migraine abortive that works for me, my insurance required that I take a migraine prophylactic (that doesn't work) or they wouldn't pay for the abortive.

I don't know if you consider those examples to be "force", but IMO they aren't based on good medicine, nor in the patients' best interest.

Assigning blame is, IMO, cultural. Getting into that would be a whole 'nother ball-o-worms. In my own personal life, I try to follow the Japanese business proverb, "Fix the problem—not the blame." However, IME, when there is blame, it usually follows the money.

Doc