Informative Essay On Painkillers

Opioid use in the US has increased over the years, and this has led to an increase in substance abuse. Substance abuse is not only associated with use of illicit drugs but also prescription drugs. In 2015, of the 20.5 million reported cases of substance abuse, 2 million had an abuse disorder related to prescription pain relievers and 591,000 associated with heroin.1 The increase in substance abuse disorder has led to an increase in opioid related death. In 2015 drug overdose was the leading cause of accidental death in the US with 52, 404 lethal drug overdoses.2

In America, the use of opioids is at an all time high, it has became such an issue nationwide, that it has became an epidemic. Because of the opioid epidemic, America is tearing apart, children all across the country are dying everyday, these children are dying from overdoses due to poisoning. The opioid problem is not just because of a person's decision to pick up a needle or a pill bottle, but it is because in the 1990’s doctors gave up on trying to treat patients for their overwhelming pain and discomfort, causing opioids to become over prescribed. Due to the carelessness of America, opioids are being distributed more and more everyday, causing the skyrocketing number of deaths.

Opioid drugs are some of the most widespread pain medications that we have in this country; indeed, the fact is that opioid analgesic prescriptions have increased by over 300% from 1999 to 2010 (Mitch 989). Consequently, the number of deaths from overdose increased from 4000 to 16,600 a year in the same time frame (Mitch 989). This fact becomes even more frightening when you think about today; the annual number of fatal drug overdoses in the Unites States now surpasses that of motor vehicle deaths (Alexander 1865). Even worse, overdose deaths caused by opioids specifically exceed those attributed to both cocaine and heroin combined (Alexander 1865).

From teenagers to adults, many are suffering with an opioid addiction. The opioid crisis that has struck, has taken a significantly large amount of lives. There were about “...50,000 [ opioid ] overdose deaths...in 2015-roughly equivalent to the number of Americans lost in the Vietnam War”(Price). All these friends and family members are dying because of something that can be controlled and even avoided. Although there are some who believe that the programs that are enacted to help with this sort of addiction are very effective, the truth is they are not as effective as people let on to believe. There should be a more enforced and regulated limit for those with a stronger prescription drug in order to lower the overdose count, over prescription from doctors, and pill shopping.

Analysis: Opioids are a class of drug that are medically used as very effective painkillers, like fentanyl and morphine, however, they are highly addictive and produce a feeling of euphoria (“Opioids”). This combination leads do a lot of abuse and dependency, where people take more than prescribed in order to feel better. People start off taking the opioid painkillers in order to not feel pain as prescribed by their doctors. Then, they end up getting addicted to them. There are also illicit opioids, such as heroin, that are also highly addictive and also lead to dependency and death (“Opioids”). These illicit versions are taken for recreational reasons, and are also often mixed with other drugs. The combination of taking an unregulated drug in conjunction with other drugs leads to a lot of overdoses.

The United States of America has had a war against drugs since the 37th president, Richard Nixon, declared more crimination on drug abuse in June 1971. From mid-1990s to today, a crisis challenges the health department and government on opioid regulation, as millions of Americans die due overdoses of painkillers. Opioids are substances used as painkillers, and they range from prescription medications to the illegal drug, heroin. Abusing these substances can cause a dependency or addiction, which can lead to overdoses, physical damages, emotional trauma, and death. To ease the crisis, physicians are asked to depend on alternatives to pain management. Law enforcement cracks down on profiting drug-dealers and heroin abusers. People are warned against misusing opioids. The controversy begins for those who suffer from chronic pain, because they depend on opioids. There’s so a correlation to the 1980s cocaine epidemic, and people are upset over racial discrimination. Nonetheless, the best way to avoid this crisis is to recover the people at risk, reduce inappropriate opioid description, and have a proper response.

Weeks before my 12th birthday, I went to an emergency center thinking that I had an ear infection. Sitting in a hospital bed, I recall panicking, as I realized I could not move my legs. 2 years and a vast multitude of tests later, doctors were able to determine that I have an autonomic nervous system condition called Dysautonomia. Now, at 19 years of age, my doctor has just signed the paperwork so that I can become a medical marijuana card holder. After years of dealing with the dilemma that is prescription opioids, I have found myself opting for medical marijuana instead, and for good reason. Without a doubt, medical marijuana is a better alternative to prescription opioids in terms of overdoses, negative side effects, and psychoactive properties.

The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such.

Many people have developed an addiction due to an injury and which were prescribed painkillers to manage and treat the pain. Prolonged use leads to dependence and once a person is addicted, increasing amounts of drugs are required to prevent feeling of withdrawal. Addiction to painkillers often leads to harder drugs such as heroin due to the black market drug being cheaper. Prescription drugs remain a far deadlier problem and more people abuse prescription medication than cocaine, methamphetamine heroin, MDMA and PCP combined. Drug abuse is ending too many lives too soon and destroying families and communities.

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

Almost one hundred years ago, prescription drugs like morphine were available at almost any general store. Women carried bottles of very addictive potent opiate based pain killers in their purse. Many individuals like Edgar Allen Poe died from such addictions. Since that time through various federal, state and local laws, drugs like morphine are now prescription drugs; however, this has not stopped the addiction to opiate based pain killers. Today’s society combats an ever increasing number of very deadly addictive drugs from designer drugs to narcotics to the less potent but equally destructive alcohol and marijuana. With all of these new and old drugs going in and out of vogue with addicts, it appears that the increase of misuse and

The reason that this drug can be so intense and dangerous is because it falls into the category II narcotics. Many commonly known narcotics include opium, morphine, and heroin. The addiction rate of any of these drugs is phenomenal. Narcotics are central nervous system depressants that relieve pain without causing the loss of consciousness. They can also produce feelings drowsiness, mental confusion and euphoria. The analgesic effects of narcotics result from the drugs’ effects on the emotional aspects of pain. Many patients that experience intense pain say that after the administration of the narcotic, their pain is as intense as ever but no longer as bothersome. Because narcotics block the emotional side effects of pain they make it much more bearable.

In fact, there was thought to be more of a need for them. Before the last two decades, opioids were used for cancer related or acute pain. However, in the 1990s chronic non cancer patients got attention because people nationally felt there was a shortage in patients receiving opioids, thus making them deprived of adequate pain management. Because of this, clinicians were encouraged to treat chronic non-cancer pain and patients in hospice care more often than they were used to. It was also encouraged to use high doses of opioids for long periods of time (Cheatle). The idea that providers seemed overly cautious about these medications caused a large increase in opioid prescriptions from health care providers. Threat of tort and litigation for some doctors that were deemed for not prescribing enough to alleviate pain of patients was also a concern for doctors This quickly turned a shortage of prescription opioids into a national prescription opioid abuse epidemic in under twenty years. From 1999 to 2010, the amount of prescription opioids sold to hospitals, pharmacies, and doctors offices quadrupled, and three times the number of people overdosed on painkillers in this time (Garcia). While some patients have benefitted from the increased sales and loose guidelines of prescription opioid analgesics, the increasing in opioid misuse, abuse, and overdose is truly daunting. As a nation, we need to back track, and

Opiates, otherwise known as prescription painkillers, have become an enormous problem in the United States. Addiction, overdoses, and death are only a few of the problems caused by opiates. Painkillers can be prescribed to help lessen chronic pain, pain from surgery, pain from serious accidents, or pain from terminal diseases. Opiates are highly addicting and have become highly abused in the United States in the past few years. Prescription painkillers need to be banned in the United States because of the dangers they bring to the patients to whom they are being prescribed. The FDA needs to become more involved in the awareness of how dangerous these drugs are and place a ban on them.

In this discussion, I will be looking at the different forms of pain and how this pain is caused within the body. The number of different types of drugs used to treat pain is forever expanding but I will examine the main types of painkiller, how they were discovered and how they work to relieve the symptoms of pain.