Opioid Drugs

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.

Most people are familiar with prescription medications; almost everyone has taken them at one point or another during their lifetime. Not all prescription drugs are addicting, but a large number of them are. Prescription drug abuse is a disease that has become a major problem in the United States, which affects over six-million Americans. Prescription drug abuse not only affects the individual, but can additionally have far-reaching consequences that affect family, personal health, employment, communities and society as a whole. Research has shown that at least 10% of people prescribed an addictive medication will become dependent on the medicine. Due to prescription drug abuse, states are beginning to monitor doctors who prescribe certain medications, more closely, which may scare some physicians away from prescribing helpful medications to people who truly need them.

Since the 19th century the United States has struggled with the control of opioids and how to properly treat the people who become dependent on them. By the 1980s studied revealed that the potential of drug dependence, also known as iatrogenic addiction, was relatively low for patients who were prescribed opiates for treatment (Beauchamp, 2014, p. 2023) - In the mid 1990s, Perdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a Schedule II prescription opioid analgesic, to the pharmaceutical market (Boerner, 2016, p. 20). Since the release of OxyContin, a substantial number of Americans have been prescribed opiates for medical treatment. Society’s view on prescription opiate use has slowly shifted from being a normative treatment method recommended by healthcare professionals, to being viewed as deviant. Prescription opioids have played a large role in increased rates of incarceration, fatal and non-fatal opiate overdose, transitions to illicit drugs and HIV infection in the United States (Boerner, 2016, p. 21). Prescription opiate use is seen as deviant when the drug is misused for non-medical purposes.

Would you believe me if I tell you that the number of deaths related to prescription drugs abuse has surpassed the number of deaths related to car accidents? In 2009, according to statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug abuses accounted for at least 37,485 of deaths in America, doubling the number in the last decade. While most of these deaths are due to the abuse of opioid painkillers, excessive use of antidepressants and antibiotics have also led to many problems. Furthermore, overprescribing by doctors have contributed a huge part in promoting these deaths.

America is struggling with a new epidemic that is taking several lives every day. “Prescription drug overdoses claim at least 40 lives daily” ("Prescription Drug Overdose," n.d.Para 1). The opioid crisis occurring across the nation is devastating. A major problem is that once patients become dependent on these prescription medications, they are reportedly seeking more affordable alternatives such as heroin or fentanyl. In addition, patients may be switching to heroin when their doctor suddenly discontinues the medication they have become dependent on. Chronic pain is a controversial issue because opioid management can be beneficial but also detrimental as seen in recent years. “Between 2002–2016, deaths soared by 533% nationwide, from under

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

The figure is startling: A 96.6 percent increase in drug-related deaths in a five-year period (Hanson, 2010). According to Brown University Pharmacology Update (2009), since the period of increases in opioid misuse in the 1990s, data over the last three-to-four years indicate a high, steady prevalence of opioid prescription misuse in the United States. According to the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 5.2 million people ages 12 and older were current nonmedical users of prescription pain relievers in 2006, comprising 2.1% of the population. This rate has remained statistically unchanged since 2002. Survey data from 2002 to 2005 found that 4.8% of persons ages 12 and older (11.4 million people) used a prescription pain reliever nonmedically in the 12 months prior to the survey. This data also indicated that an annual average of 57.7% of people who used prescription pain medication nonmedically in the past year used hydrocodone products, and 21.7% used oxycodone products. Recent male users were more likely to use hydrocodone products nonmedically compared to recent female users (61.4% compared to 54.9%). Young

Opioids are prescription drugs that deal with reducing pain when taken. There are various types of prescription drugs that can classify as opioids such as morphine, codeine, hydrocodone, or Demerol, to name a few. The drugs originally are synthesized and derived from the opium poppy, Physicians will prescribe this medication as a painkiller, but many others turned to purer doses of these medications and started turning to more potent drugs like heroin or Percocet. The one thing that these brand name drugs have in common is that they contain opium, an extremely addictive narcotic drug. In many cases, many patients receiving pain killing medication from doctors become dependent on the drug, leading them to use it recreationally instead

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.

Prescription pain abuse is one of the fastest growing addictions in the country. Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin have replaced some street drugs. I think that the abuse is the patient's fault but in a way it is also the doctor’s fault. The doctor’s are the ones to prescribe the medicine.

Prescription drug abuse is a modern-day disease. In an estimate, over six million American have abused prescription medication. However, there is no completely accurate way to measure this abuse. The number of people who have died is important, but the fact that many people suffer from addiction to prescription drugs is. Negative effects such as torn apart families, destroyed lives, and deaths are all results of Opioid overdoses. The question is why do people take opioids and what are they? According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse “Opioid are drugs formulated to replicate the pain reducing properties of opium. They include both painkillers such as morphine, oxycodone, or hydrocodone prescribed by doctors for chronic pain, as well

Every day, millions of Americans take some form of prescription drug to treat anything from an anxiety disorder to severe physical pain. They are not getting these drugs off of the streets, from a dark alley, or from a drug dealer; they are getting them from people that are supposed to help you feel better: doctors. “Roughly one in five Americans are prescribed an opiate every year, for treatment of an acute injury, for example, or dental work or for chronic pain.” (McCarthy) Obviously, some of the painkillers prescribed nowadays actually do help people function in everyday life, but, unfortunately, it is all too easy to become addicted to anything from OxyContin to Vicodin or Percocet. Almost every person can identify someone in their

In a society that has become acclimated to the ideal of instant gratification, it comes as no surprise that some 29,000 Americans a year die due to opioid overdose (Gupta). In the eyes of modern medical professionals, prescription narcotics have become the miracle drug, an across-the-board cure for pain. However, when it comes to the patient, what is initially used to ease chronic pain quickly becomes as imperative as breathing. According to a study done by the American College of Physicians, within less than 299 days, 91% of patients who overdosed on opioids were able to receive another prescription (Larochelle et al.). In such cases it is no longer the patient who is to blame, but the doctors who selfishly push these drugs without considering

On average, approximately 650,000 opioid prescription are written every day. In addition, each day 78 Americans die from an opioid-related overdose. (The opioid epidemic, 2016). Doctors undoubtedly play a big role in our opioid problem. As previously mentioned, the pharmaceutical companies are big reason for this. In addition, doctors just don’t want to deal with drug abuse problems, so they ignore them. Anna Lembke says, “It's something that a lot of doctors avoid, which is also why a lot of doctors don't even ask their patients about substance abuse problems, because they just don't want to go there. They don't want to have to deal with the tension that arises in the interaction, in the moment when they are talking about something that the