Prescription Drug Abuse

To illustrate the magnitude of the research problem and provide a frame of reference, this section begins with a brief overview of the increased use of pharmaceuticals and prescription drug abuse in the US. The section continues with the relationship between illicit drugs and prescriptions, adolescents’ abuse, personal and social factors; then concludes with the theoretical approach. The Social-Ecological Theory, will be applied in researching prescription drug abuse, possible influences and protective factors in adolescents in relation to prescription drug abuse, to develop focused intervention strategies and educational programs for this population, similar to other substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.

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.

Millions of people throughout the world are taking drugs on a daily basis. If you were to ask someone why they take prescription drugs, most people would be taking them for the right reason. However, it’s estimated that twenty percent of people in the United States alone have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons.1 Prescription drug abuse is a serious and growing problem that often goes unnoticed. Abusing these drugs can often lead to addiction and even death. You can develop an addiction to certain drugs that may include: narcotic painkillers, sedatives, tranquilizers, and stimulants.1 Prescription drugs are the most common abused category of drugs, right next to marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and

The United States currently faces an unprecedented epidemic of opioid addiction. This includes painkillers, heroin, and other drugs made from the same base chemical. In the couple of years, approximately one out of twenty Americans reported misuse or abuse of prescriptions painkillers. Heroin abuse and overdoses are on the rise and are the leading cause of injury deaths, surpassing car accidents and gun shots. The current problem differs from the opioid addiction outbreaks of the past in that it is also predominant in the middle and affluent classes. Ultimately, anyone can be fighting a battle with addiction and it is important for family members and loved ones to know the signs. The cause for this epidemic is that the current spike of opioid abuse can be traced to two decades of increased prescription rates for painkillers by well-meaning physicians.

Did you know that 91 Americans die every day due to an Opioid overdose and yet American’s still report no relief of pain? Since 1999 the number of deaths due to prescriptions opioid or heroin overdose has quadrupled (http://www.cdc.gov). Four out of five Americans turned to the black market for heroin, which initially started as an opioid drug addiction. It is an American crisis, due to the number of individuals that consume oxycodone, which accounts for eight-one percent of Americans (http://www.drugabuse.gov).

Doctors and clinical prescribers have discovered their role in curtailing the increased opioid prescriptions in America. It is without a doubt that they play a role in facilitating the opioid misuse endemic in the past by being enablers of the situations. When patients ask for pain medications, they do not take time to analyze the pain complaints or suggest alternative medications other than opioids. Even in instances when one doctor declines to offer a patient an opioid prescription for their pain needs, the patient is likely to find another who will give the prescription. However, there has been wide recognition of the opioid misuse endemic such that clinical prescribers are practicing more vigilant prescribing and are advocating opioid-free

In the United States, there has been upward swing of opioid abuse over the past decade. Overdose deaths involving opioids – both prescription pain relievers and heroin – almost quadrupled between 1999 and 2014. Well-intentioned efforts to curb prescription opioid abuse have yielded new policies with unfortunate, unforeseen consequences for the 15% of the US population that suffer from chronic pain – nearly 45 million people.

America is in the midst of yet another drug-related epidemic only this time it is the worst opioid overdose epidemic the world has seen since the late 1990’s. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC 2016), “since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids has quadrupled.” Opioids (including prescription opioids and heroin) killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record. (Rudd, Seth, David, School, 2015). With overdoses from heroin, prescription drugs, and opioid pain relievers surpassing car accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in America, it became clear that swift and comprehensive legislation was needed for treatment, recovery support and prevention education in communities

The misuse of opioids has been around for over 20 years in the United States. In a 2017 article “Opioid Crisis”, it states that in the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies misled healthcare providers by informing them that patients would not become addicted to opioid painkillers. As a result, healthcare providers too liberally prescribed opioid pain relievers. Opioid abuse rates started to climb and it was clear that these medications were highly addictive. According to Volkow, Frieden, Hyde, and Cha (2014), between 1990 and 2010 death rates from prescription opioid overdose quadrupled in the United States. This surpassed the death rates from cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. Furthermore, they state that the epidemic is a result

Modern day America is plagued by a surplus of tragedy, most may have seen viral videos of these “zombies” slumped in cars or streets and yet it continues. In fact, this terrifying epidemic was created by drugs that were intended for pain relief, Opioids. This includes prescription pain relievers like oxycodone, morphine, methadone, and hydrocodone. Ironically, the well-known street drug, Heroin, is one of the most serious offenders of the Opioid crisis (Anderson). With each day, more mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers are witnessing and losing loved ones from overdoses, which is why the focus of society absolutely needs to be on a path of action towards the rising deaths, excessive prescriptions and governmental influences in opioid addiction.

Prescription drugs are given to patients daily all over the world. Opioid painkillers are known to provide pain relief, but there seems to be an excessive amount of death and injuries because, more than ever, they are highly marketed and incorrectly prescribed. More than 2 million of Americans are dependent or abuse prescription pain pills (Opioid Crisis…). Worldwide nearly 26.4 million people abuse opioids (Public Affairs). It’s not just an issue in the United States but is becoming a worldwide crisis. The issue is known as the opioid epidemic. This is the question that is being asked: What are the factors of prescription opioids in the United States?

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.

Opioid addiction also causes strain on the family member and they will spend more time fighting about the addiction. All throughout the years, political officials have prevented us from putting in place the policies needed to effectively stop this crisis. Since the demand and interest of opioids such as OxyContin and other new painkiller were popular, pharmaceutical companies started to market the drug (Burke 2017). This then lead to a high number of physicians accepting to prescribe prescriptions opioid to their patients. One can argue that is this a way in which a doctor can be able to make more money in their pocket (Burke 2017). In the year 2012 alone, doctors wrote around 260 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers to their patients. After years and years of people demanding change and millions of deaths, on October 2017, President Trump revealed that his Administration was to proclaim the opioid crisis as a “national Public Health Emergency under federal law.” Aside from this, new policies and measures have been taken into place such as drastically changing the way doctors prescribe opioids to their patients, controlling the supply of illegal drugs, and creating easy ways in which people can access drugs that can reverse opioid overdoses (Burke

“The total toll from prescription opioid overdoses exceeds 175,000, three times the U.S. body count in the Vietnam war” (“Pain Medications are Killing…” 1). In 2013, half as many people died in a traffic accident than overdosed, and 2,000 less had been murdered (“Pain Medications are Killing…” 1). Opioid prescription has contributed to a rise in heroin abuse and deaths, because opioid patients turn to find new and stronger drugs and seek a street equivalent chemical that is easy to find and cheap to use (“Pain Medications are Killing…” 2). It has also lead to a rise in other drugs, and today there is the highest prescription and drug abuse rates ever. Not only is it causing deaths, but it is causing debt in America. To address the scale of

National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that between the years of 2002 and 2012 the usage of heroin was 19% higher with the people that had already been prescribed pain medications.“Pooling data from 2002 to 2012, the incidence of heroin initiation was 19 times higher among those who reported prior nonmedical pain reliever use than among those who did not (NIDA). The idea that various doctors just throughout the united states are over-prescribing opioids is extremely concerning. This means that they are being careless, possibly being fooled by patients, and it means that they are ultimately partially responsible for the growing opioid epidemic. Bigger actions need to be taken by all levels of society to attempt to maintain and control this devastating reality. Along with research form many different studies performed throughout the united states, people also have suffered personally from the opioid epidemic. Overdoses are one of the top reasons for death in the US. They happen just about everywhere in the world, but more so in the United states that anywhere else. Congressman Zeldin Lee claims that ““As a whole, our nation has been debilitated by the rise of the heroin and opioid abuse epidemic, and as heroin and opioids flood the streets of our communities on Long Island and across America, the issue continues to become increasingly personal.”