New Zealand may have dodged a bullet on the opioid crisis, but our lax advertising rules could leave us open to another threat.

In the latest chapter of the United States' struggle with painkiller dependency, drug company Johnson & Johnson has been fined more than half a billion dollars for its role in the crisis.

That includes the company's false and misleading marketing of the drugs to both consumers and GPs.

College of GPs medical director Richard Medlicott says that marketing spread through the US and New Zealand - the only two countries that allow drug companies to advertise to consumers.

"We were aware in New Zealand that this was not true, and there was a little bit of marketing at first, but we haven't seen marketing of those drugs for a long time in New Zealand."

However, he says that we're not immune to the crisis of opioid addiction, and he'd like to see advertising go away completely.

"What happened in the States is what can happen when you let pharmaceutical companies push their message outside of where it should be warranted."