LT Paul's Presentation Summary

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.

The War on Drugs is one cause for the mass incarceration that has become apparent within the United States. This refers to a drastic amount of people being imprisoned for mainly non-violent crime (“Mass Incarceration” 2016). In addition to people who are not an immediate threat to society being locked up for a substantial duration of time, the economic consequences are costing states and taxpayers millions of dollars. Specifically, every one in five people incarcerated is in prison due to some

study on 548 men at Durham prison in Elvet, England. All of these men were

Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the growing problem of prescription drug abuse, some common drugs that cause abuse, and their effects and some common treatments.

As we see the further progression of the opioid epidemic within the United States, pharmacists become the frontlines to recognizing and providing care for these patients. It is however difficult to provide care for a patient when even the professionals within the medical community have an associated stigma attached to the use of these drugs. Patients who have a need for these painkillers recognize this stigma, and by doing so decide to avoid consulting their doctors and do not seek the care which they need. They do this to avoid the discriminatory treatment they receive both within and on the outside of the healthcare system, and to avoid the legal repercussions associated with the misuse and abuse of these products1. It is therefore the pharmacists' job to avoid the stigmatization of these people and respect those who use these treatments for legitimate medical purposes.

This report starts off with an overview of drug courts are, then moves into the overall problem with drug control in the United States. They talk about the history and the rise in drug offenses during the 1980’s causing the prison populations to rise. When comparing the rise of drug offenses, they found it was both state and federal level. The growth of drug offenses became approximately one in every 198 persons was incarcerated. About nine years later, the first drug court was established. Courts, jails, and prisons were seeing a pattern with the number of low level repeat drug offenders and street dealers starting to cause problems with overcrowding . The drug court movement was a shift from law enforcement’s emphasis on reducing drug use.

America is at war. We have been battling drug mishandle for very nearly a century. Four Presidents have by and by battled against medications. Sadly, it is a war that we are losing. Tranquilize abusers keep on filling our courts, healing centers, and detainment facilities. The medication exchange causes rough wrongdoing that assaults our neighborhoods. Offspring of medication abusers are ignored, manhandled, and even surrendered. The main recipients of this war are sorted out wrongdoing individuals and street pharmacists.

ESSENCE OF THE STORY: In the past few years, opioid addiction has become an epidemic in the United States leading to around 64,000 people dying from drug overdose in 2016 alone. As a result the health and human services secretary, Mr. Azar, and the F.D.A. chief, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, has made battling opioid addiction a top priority. The main way the F.D.A. is attempting to battle the epidemic is by allowing pharmaceutical companies to sell new types of medications that aren’t meant to stop addiction but to help suppress the cravings of addiction. The new medication that the F.D.A is approving is supposed to be a part of the program MAT, or medication-assisted-treatment. Mr. Azar as well as Dr. Scott have been pushing for more MAT in hope to help people with addiction live productive lives. Though like most big changes in society, the F.D.A’s decision has drawn criticism. Addiction experts are saying that new medication isn’t the solution but more access to the medication is.

Drug abuse is shown to be connected to all different kinds of crime in the United States, and in many circumstances, crime is inspired by drug abuse and addiction. In fact, 80% of criminal offenders abuse drugs or alcohol (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Also, 60% of those who are arrested test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested, and 60-80% commit another crime, typically drug-related, after leaving prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). And, even after these individuals put in the time in prison that would allow them to go through the uncomfortable process of detoxing, 95% of them will chose to go back to drug abuse after prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Given these overwhelming statistics, it is clear that drug abuse, and repeated or continued drug abuse, are a serious problem facing the criminal justice system.

Politico's Alexander Burns reported that Paul, in a 2013 response to President Obama's State of the Union address, used language that was exactly the same as a 2011 Associated Press report. And in a speech at Howard University earlier this year, Paul used language similar to the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family while discussing vouchers.

One of the biggest problems with the criminal justice system ever sense the war on drugs is that their only goal is to get as many users and dealers off the street as possible. Not focusing on if that person is addicted to that substance, that they need help to get clean. Rates of people who clinically meet all the criteria to be considered medically addicted to a substance is shocking, 65 percent of inmates meet that standard. Of that 65 percent of inmates only about 11 percent of them receive actual treatment while in prison (New CASA* Report Finds). This is shocking because for a system that is trying to get people off the street, one would think they would want to keep them

For an extended period, the prison has been seen as the best place where drug user can manage to kick out their addiction due to lack of drugs and influence. However, research has shown that in America, prisons may not be the best place for those wishing to transform from drug addiction. As a result of addiction, some drug policy allows a prisoner to undergo a medication period in efforts to end the addiction. However, they have turned the process into an opportunity whereby they get chances to cheek medication for personal gain or bartering purposes. Consequently, correctional nurses have been directed to crush the medicine and float them in the water to curb the behavior. Hence, in this paper I will discuss the risk the inmate takes to involve themselves with drug abuse, and whether the method used by corrective nurses is the best.

Drug use in America is one of the major issues we face and the problem has skyrocketed over the past three decades. Heroin and painkiller addictions exceed all other countries. It is important that we address some of the causes that lead to the abuse, how to treat the abuse, and how to prevent the distribution of illegal prescription drugs.

The so-called “War on Drugs,” as declared by the Nixon administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, marked the beginning of the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, racism, privatized prisons, and a powerful constituency that profits as a result of the prohibition of drugs. Psychoactive substances have been apart of the human experience as long as humans have walked the earth. There is little hope that drug production will ever be curtailed, so long as there is a demand; a demand that has remained steady even though it has been forty years since the beginning of said war. As Judge James P. Gray from the Superior Court of Orange County has so plainly put it: “Where did this policy

It is common knowledge that America has the world’s largest population of prisoners, and in 2008, a study was completed by the Pew Charitable Trusts which indicated that half of the inmates in jail and prison are serving time for nonviolent drug charges (http://www.pewstates.org/news-room/press-releases/new-pew-study-finds-36-percent-increase-in-prison-time-served-85899394970). Since the “War on Drugs” approach about forty years ago, the criminalization of the addict has done very little to address the problem of substance abuse in society. While there is no one clear cause of substance abuse, there have been patterns identified in substance abusers, that may be the underlying factors that lead to the addiction. Some of these factors include mental health and biology.