Persuasive Essay On Prescription Drugs

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.

Prescription drug abuse and overdose-related deaths have reached an epidemic level in the United States and are an urgent public health concern. To combat this opioid crisis, in 2016 Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) was signed into law. CARA authorizes grants to increase access to treatment services and opioid reversal drugs such as Naloxone, strengthen the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), expand prevention and educational efforts. In spite of the extensive range of activities authorized by CARA to control this epidemic, the US has experienced an increase in the number of the opioid overdose-related emergency visit from 2016 to September 2017. Therefore, after considering the policy options to reform this act, the most apropos solution would be the universal mandate of PDMP use. Mandating PDMPs can reduce prescription overdose and misuse of opioids. In order to ensure the impact of this program, PDMPs will have to be implemented on a Federal level. This will essentially make sure that all states taking part in the program are responsible for keeping track of registered physicians and dispensers under the Prescription

First, disclosure of information to the patient will sometimes increase the likelihood of depression and physical deterioration, or result in the choice of medically inoptimal treatment. Second, disclosure of information is therefore sometimes likely to be detrimental to the patient’s health, and perhaps hasten his death. Third, health and prolonged life can be assumed to have priority among preferences for patients who place themselves under physicians’ care. Fourth, Worsening health or hastening death can therefore be assumed to be contrary to patients’ own true value orderings. Lastly, paternalism is therefore justified: doctor may sometimes override patients’ prima facie rights to information about their risks and treatments or about their own conditions in order to prevent harm (Vaughn, 96.)

Are prescription drugs overprescribed? Are patients being prescribed the correct medications that they actually need? Are generic drugs doing the same for the human body that marked up brand name medications are? These are some of the public’s biggest questions that can be easily answered by research. Everyone is affected by medication and healthcare in general today. Many real life scenarios are offered throughout this writing to support the argument. The following thesis statement is a worldwide problem. Unfortunately, the United States has the largest problem with inflation of drug cost and over-prescription of medications. Many people are to blame: drug manufacturers, insurers, prescribers, educators, and many others. A change is needed.

Are prescription drugs overprescribed? Are patients being prescribed the correct medications that they actually need? Are generic drugs doing the same for the human body that marked up brand name medications are? These are some of the public’s biggest questions that can be easily answered by research. Everyone is affected by medication and healthcare in general today. Many real life scenarios are offered throughout this writing to support the argument. The following thesis statement is a worldwide problem. Unfortunately, the United States has the largest problem with inflation of drug cost and over-prescription of medications. Many people are to blame: drug manufacturers, insurers, prescribers, educators, and many others. A change is needed.

Therefore, the patient trusts the physician to not only act on their behalf but also make choices that would benefit them. Hicks (2014) states that having this approach may cause problems because “In health care, the physician is both a healthcare provider and an agent of the consumer. The physician’s incentives in

The other day, I read a New York Times article titled, “U.S. Charges 412, Including Doctors, in $1.3 Billion Health Fraud.” According to the article, the Department of Justice accused individuals, many of whom were physicians, of participating in illegal acts such as billing Medicare and Medicaid for unpurchased drugs and gratuitously prescribing opiates to addicts. As an aspiring physician, it is disheartening to read such headlines. It is shocking that doctors would resort to exploiting their patients and our health care system. Exorbitant costs already burden the system and we don’t need doctors to compound the problem with their greed.

Prescription painkiller addiction has become one of the fastest growing addictions in the country. The misuse of painkillers represents three-fourths of the overall problem of prescription drug abuse. (Foundation for a Drug-Free World.) The addiction can affect people of any age. So who’s fault is it? Who is to blame for the painkiller addiction that is taking over the nation? Do we blame the doctor for over-prescribing these potential harmful and extremely addicting drugs? Do we blame it on the lack of knowledge of the potential risks that these drugs carry by the general public? Are the patients at fault for their desperate cravings of a pill that will make all their pain go away? Maybe the fact that alternative medicine is viewed as such that they will not work as well as a drug will.

Even though people need their prescriptions, the abuse of them is getting out of control and we need to find a way to regulate it better,because it can destroy a family, cause some to become addicted, or even kill them. Prescription drugs are no joke, they can be worse than illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and even heroin. The only difference is a doctor can prescribe these types of drugs. The problem we run into with prescription drugs is there is not enough being done to keep the person from becoming addicted or them selling to others. In 2007 2.5 million Americans abused just painkillers (Drug free world). That is not even including the other two types. Now it is starting to affect teens, one out of every ten teenagers admit to abusing a prescribed drug(Drug-free world).

For the last 40 years, Western medicines has been drawn its bioethics through the four principles: autonomy, non-malfeasance, beneficence, and justices. In other words, a medical provider has to respect a patient’s decision, while also making sure he or she receives the most benefits and the least harms from the medical treatment. While Western medicine has developed with four sets of principles to treating a patient’s diseases, Western medicine is systemically flawed by not recognizing a patient as a person manifest with a cultural identity. The current system

Shifting focus from the patient to money destroyed the purpose of medicine to purpose of treating and being truthful towards the patients. Pushing for any medical treatment should only be done if there is the slightest chance that the patient comes out as successful; the money can be a huge problem to a patient but a patients health remains more important than

One complaint heard when a doctor is mentioned is that doctor’s only want money from society. In reality, doctor’s do not receive all of the money that is paid at each doctor visit. Amounts spent on prescription medication is to keep medications up-to-date, which is a point often overlooked. Also,

[1] Dilemmas happen all the time in the practice of medicine. In fact, doctors experience dilemmas of various scopes every day. Dilemmas can be as insignificant as prescribing relatively harmless drugs, or as significant as making life or death decisions. The more serious the choice, the more autonomy and trust traditionally given to the doctor. Indeed, in most cases, patients and their families do not have enough qualification in medicine to knowledgeably create or alter the course of treatment set by physicians: which results in them commonly deferring in to the expertise of the medical practitioner. This creates a complicated ethical quandary as to whether we should defer to the physician, who has medical expertise; or respect the patient’s

With the continuous rise of pharmaceutical drugs it not only hurts the pharmacist but also the patient that they are serving. Pharmacists can feel helpless when they tell a patient that their insurance no longer covers the medication they need. Whereas, patients feel stuck when they don’t know how to pay for their rising cost of medication. According to a May 2007 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, medication costs are projected to increase by 148% in 10 years (Scaggs-Oskoui, 2008).

Companies selling life saving drugs are raising prices and causing people to not be able to afford the drugs they need to survive. Not everyone can pay hundreds of dollars for a couple of pills to help them survive. Many people's lives will be in danger because they don't have the money to buy these drugs. The government should control the prices of these life saving drugs so that people will be able to afford them.