Wow I didn't know that grey/black-market dealers used blister packs in the EU. Unless you are implying that the bogus Vicodin he took was pharmacist provided, which is absolutely absurd. The US has a lot of problems, but the safety of legally-obtained medicine is not one of them.
A big part of the problem in America is ignorance with regards to how the rest of the world does medicine/drugs. Europe, the UK, Israel and the rest of the modern world use blister packs that are harder to counterfeit than loose pills.
Here in the USA our analogy would be Marlboro cigarettes. It would be much easier to make counterfeit loose Marlboro cigarettes than to make a counterfeit sealed box of Marlboros. Buying a bunch of loose Marlboros from a stranger isn't something most Americans would do while buying a sealed pack of Marlboros anywhere from anyone is something most smokers would do as there's very little risk. People recognize branding and packaging and can tell if any detail is off even just slightly. It's incredibly rare for counterfeiters to get every packaging detail right to the point that it will pass visual/physical inspection.
America lags behind the modern world in our pharmaceutical tech.
Here's an example of a blister pack that uses a wide range of different doses in an easy to use package that would help patients taper down gradually to avoid pitfalls. In the USA this would require multiple prescriptions and typically just wouldn't be done. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-022-07862-1
My larger point is that if the dealers can make identical looking counterfeits, including imprints, then I am pretty confident they can make legit looking blister packs as well.
