Tramadol is supposed to be a non-addictive alternative to more harmful opioids such as oxycodone or fentanyl.
But the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners says most of its members have at least one patient dependent on the drug and its president agrees people need more information about possible side-effects.
Tarsha Cutten was first prescribed tramadol for back pain, and before long was visiting multiple doctors to feed her addiction.
"Obviously if you've got any form of addiction you're starting with the lying, so I'm going to doctors, three different doctors, saying you're in mass pain but you're not."
When she was prescribed tramadol, she was not told it was potentially addictive, she said.
Cutten is now drug-free, and director of Clinic 77, which helps people with addiction issues.
Doctors prescribing tramadol should tell people about the potential risks, she said.
"Just a pamphlet would be good, that kind of covered from tramadol to benzos (Benzodiazepines)."
Withdrawing from tramadol could be harder than getting off methamphetamine, she said.
"You start getting the symptoms if you stop using - sweats, shakes, tremors, nausea, vomiting."
Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners president Samantha Murton agrees patients should be told about possible side-effects.
"Whether it's on a pamphlet or in information that's in the packaging or with the doctor or the person who's prescribing it."
It was likely doctors had turned to prescribing tramadol since other opioids such as oxycontin were found to be hugely addictive, Murton said.
But in switching to tramadol, doctors may not have fully recognised that it too could create dependence and have side-effects, she said.
"I think there probably has not been enough conversations about the addictive nature of it, for people to understand if they take it long-term that it will be hard to come off."
It would be helpful to have a specific prescription to help patients taper off the drug, she said.
"Some exploration of what ways people can withdraw from it slowly would be really good."
Addiction psychologist Sam Mcbride said the medical profession needed to be better at communicating with patients when prescribing these kinds of drugs.
"Both identifying people who might be vulnerable, talking to people about the risks of addiction or just risks of abuse, and warning about it."
Data from the Government's drug-buying agency Pharmac showed there had been a 9 percent increase since 2017 in the amount of tramadol that pharmacies had dispensed.
