Causes Of Opioid Addiction

There is no question that the alarming rate of deaths related to opioid overdose needs to be addressed in this county, but the way to solve the problem seems to remain a trial and error approach at this point. A patient is injured, undergoes surgery, experiences normal wear and tear on a hip, knee or back and has to live with that pain for the rest of their life or take a narcotic pain medication in order to improve their quality of life and at least be able to move. The above patients are what narcotic pain medications were created for, a population of people that use narcotic pain medications for fun is what is creating a problem. Narcotics are addictive to both populations, however taking the narcotic for euphoric reasons is not the intention of the prescription that the physician is writing. The healthcare system needs to find a way to continue to provide patients that experience chronic pain with the narcotics that work for them while attempting to ensure the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) doesn’t have to worry about a flood of pain pills hitting the streets by granting access to the population with a substance abuse problem.

As we all have researched and found out the devastating numbers to the opioid epidemic “the abuse of prescription and non-prescription opioids is one of the greatest threats facing public health in the United States today. It is estimated that as many as 2.5 million people in the US are suffering from opioid addiction related to prescriptions, and an additional 467,000 are addicted to heroin”(2017).

In 2012, enough opioid prescriptions were written to cover every adult in America at least once , but that trend has already begun to be reversed. Last year, 17 million fewer opioid pain relievers were prescribed than in the year before. The concern is that the new guidelines and policies are blunt instruments that are denying patients who appropriately use their prescription opioids access to medications, rather then blocking access for the recreational, illicit user of opioids. There are reports of physicians who are wary about writing prescriptions for opioid pain relievers, those who blindly follow guidelines without considering the nuances of an individuals’ needs, and those who have

According to NIH, millions of people suffer from opioid use disorder throughout the United States. This epidemic has continued to spread and the numbers of people who are becoming addicted is on the rise so much that the total burden of cost is at 78.5 billion dollars per year for prescription opioid misuse, this includes the cost of addiction treatment, criminal justice services, and health care (NIH, 2017. https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-crisis) Unfortunately there does not seem to be an end to this epidemic anytime soon. The numbers are unremarkable; natural and semi-synthetic opioids peeked at 14,427, heroin at 15,446 and synthetic opioids other than methadone at 20,145. That is a total of 50,018 deaths for some type

The source describes the opioid overdose epidemic across the U.S. as a significant issue possibly deriving from economic stress, social isolation, and over-prescribing pain relievers. Action must be taken to help and prevent dependency on opioids in order to stop this rapid rate of overdose throughout America. Proper education is vital for younger and elder generations to know how to prevent opioid dependency.

My concerned is the current opioid epidemic in our society. There has been a significant increase in the use of opioid analgesics for pain control. There is a corresponding growth in the rate of abuse, misuse, and overdose of these drugs. As a nurse, I had witnessed and continue to witness patients coming in the emergency room from opioids overdose between the ages of 12 and 25 and this situation continue to increase in number. There is a significant increase in number of teenagers using opioid they buy from the street and others the opioid from family member who were given prescription and other situations

Doctors and other medical professional specialize in providing quality medical care for their patients, are now fighting to control pain without the risk of misuse and abuse of prescribed medications by their patients. One disadvantage of quality care is providing opioid medications to help control extreme pain for some patients. Many patients have become dependent on opioid—highly addicted painkillers such as fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, propoxyphene, and methadone. According to 21 Health Organizations and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) cited by ACPM, “effective pain management is an integral and important aspect of quality medical care, and pain should be treated aggressively” (the American College of Preventive Medicine, 2011). Aggressively fighting patients’ pain with opioid medications have led to an increase rate of addictions to the level in which it is known as uncontrollable epidemic in today’s society.

In 2008, prescription drugs spending was $234.1 billion, almost 6 times the $40.3 billion spent in 1990. Moreover, 70% of Americans were found taking at least one prescription drug and more than half of those patients were already on two or more prescription drugs. As a result, drugs-related deaths have become the fourth leading cause of death in America, and one of the biggest culprit is the overprescribing of opioid pain medications. The use of hydrocodone and oxycodone, the two most common opioids, by Americans is frightening. In fact, statistics show that 99% and 80% of the world’s use of hydrocodone and oxycodone respectively are done by Americans. Thus, the rate of death due to opioids overdose has quadrupled since 1999. In most cases, opioid pain medications are usually reserved specifically for cancer patients or patients in hospice care when their pain becomes unbearable. Opioids can also be used for a maximum of three days to relieve short-term pain, but a survey from the National Safety Council showed that almost all of the doctors prescribe the medications for a longer period of time and disturbingly, 20% percent of the doctors put their patients on the pills for one month. I believe this isn’t due to bad intention from the doctors. They just want to help their patient feel better but they’ve underestimated the addiction that comes hand in

The United States is facing a growing epidemic of prescription opioid (PO) abuse, which contributes to increasing mortality rates. Opioids are opium-like medications used to treat severe and chronic pain. Prescription opioid drug abuse is the intentional misuse of opioids without a prescription or use of the medication in a manner other than it was prescribed, mainly with the sole purpose for euphoria. Within the United States, the rising abuse of opioids contributed to 14,800 deaths in 2008 which is four times more than the number of deaths from PO abuse in 1999 (CDC, 2011). These deaths were marked mostly as unintentional as opposed to suicide or unknown causes and continue to rise each year (Chakravarthy, Shah, & Lotfipour, 2012).

Surgeon General Murthy is spot on with his call for action. Effective pain treatment, screening for opioid use disorder and shaping the perspective of addiction is important. However, one important detail missing in this call for education is ensuring doctors are able to recognize and handle addiction. As previously mentioned, many doctors enter the profession lacking the proper knowledge, and fail to notice signs of drug misuse or dependence.

In the United States, more than 2 million people suffer from substance abuse disorders that correlate with use of prescription opioid painkillers. Over the past 15 years, overdose deaths due to prescription opioids have more than quadrupled. One of the underlying causes is the over prescription of pain relievers by physicians. This was demonstrated in 2013, with the writing of 207 million prescriptions for opioid pain relievers.

Medicine has been around for thousands of years and has diversified and given us many options to treat illness or pain. Some are available as over-the-counter drugs that can be purchased almost anywhere and others require you to get a prescription from your doctor in order to get it. Some of these drugs that require a prescription often help people who deal with chronic pain, those who are at the end of their life, or cancer patients. Unfortunately these drugs, although helpful to those who need them, are being abused by millions of Americans every year. With doctors prescribing ludicrous amounts of prescription drug, sometimes when it is not even necessary, and our lack of knowledge on the subject, prescription drug abuse has become a big

Abuse of opioid pain relievers (OPRs) continues to increase in the United States. Opioid-related overdose deaths since 1999 have quadrupled, correlated with quadrupled dispensing of prescription opioids (Rudd et al., 2016, CDC, 217). Among these deaths, prescription opioids have been involved approximately half (CDC, 2017). According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the central issue is elevated prescribing rates of physicians and the solution to this problem is safer prescribing practices.

According to Michigan Department of Health and Human services deaths caused by Opioid/heroin abuse now exceeds the gun and traffic fatalities. More than 300 deaths in Michigan each year are caused by this issue (Domino, Andrew). Prescription for individual dosage units of schedule II drugs increased from 180 million in 2007 to 745 million in 2014. Interestingly, a report from the Michigan state’s Health

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2016), substance abuse refers to “the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs.” The term substance abuse may congregate images of drugs, such as cocaine, alcohol, and tobacco. However, the current drug afflicting the United States are opioids. Opioids are a category of illegal drugs, which includes heroin and opium, and can be found in pain medications (National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIH], 2014). Since 2000, opioid abuse has increased 200% with more than 47,055 deaths from drug overdose in 2014 (Rudd, Aleshire, Zebell, & Gladden, 2016). Therefore, many of the national bills being introduced this legislation pertain to opioid abuse. Meanwhile