Prescription Drug Abuse Is Increasing At A High Rate? Essay

Countries all over the world are dealing with a rise of drug use and drug-related public health concerns. Many nations adopt vaguely similar methods of battling the “War on Drugs”, from strict border control to harsh criminal punishments for drug-related offenders, violent or not. Even with these efforts put in place, many places are not seeing the desired results. Drug use is mainly treated like a crime, and that may be the problem. Countries that have concerns with rising drug use among their citizens should follow Portugal in decriminalizing the possession and use of small quantities of all illicit drugs.

With access to prescription drugs, people are able to treat a multitude of diseases and illnesses. These drugs help deal with pain, inability to sleep, depression, and much more. Every day we are increasingly living in a world where there is better living through chemicals. However, what most do not seem to see is the rising tide of pain, illness, and ultimately death being caused by the pills people take every day. Most keep drugs in a special place in their minds, where they see them as harmless. Sadly, this is not the case, and in some cases our prescription drugs can be just as harmful as illegal drugs (King 68).

There have been several news coverages on TV and social network about drug overdose of different cases recently and they have risen people’s concern about the problems of drug abuse national-wide. The drug abuse and opioid epidemic is not a new problem to the American society, actually it has been a serious problem for many years. So what is the situation of drug epidemic now, and how can we find effective ways to deal with this problem? A few writers who ponder this question are Nora D. Volkow, Dan Nolan and Chris Amico.

In 1906 the Food and Drug Act was officially created by the president at the time that was Theodore Roosevelt. The job of the FDA is to protect the health of the public and doing so by assuring that human and veterinary drugs are safe and secure along with biological products, medical devices , food supply in the US, cosmetics, and products that have been introduced to radiation. It’s important because they ensure the foods you are consuming can be eaten without getting you sick. They also ensure the medicine you get is not going to cause harm to you. Without the FDA the drugs we get from pharmacies and the food we get from stores would have the possibility of being very unsafe and hurtful. The FDA has created many regulations that products have to go through to be considered FDA approved. Some of those include the safety of the food we consume, products that contain tobacco, dietary supplements, medications from pharmacies, vaccines, and blood

The United States is not immune to the worldwide drug addiction epidemic. Drugs pour in from Mexico daily, then distributed to throughout the country. The economic crisis in America is creating an excuse for drug use (e.g., depression, hopelessness). This chemical fix not only creates problems for the addict, but the family and community as well. Every addict has an enabler, a person who makes the addiction possible through various venues of support (e.g., financial, denial). Addicts are only concerned with their next fix and will resort to any means to obtain it (e.g., theft, prostitution, pan-handling). Some have even resorted to extremely desperate measures; for example, murder for inheritance or life insurance proceeds.

Despite efforts to decrease the number of deaths and overdoses related to narcotic medications, such as OxyContin, and minimize the number of people illegally obtaining them, the measures that the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) in specific are taking are not enough. The literal definition of a narcotic is a drug that produces numbness or stupor; often taken for pleasure or to reduce pain; extensive use can lead to addiction. Narcotics are normally prescription medications that are given to patients to help ease the constant pain cause by cancer or other long term illnesses.

In the United States of America, there is prescription drug abuse epidemic that continues to be a growing concern. Prescription drugs cause a large amount of overdoses and result in an abundant amount of deaths each year. A government study conducted shows this epidemic is scarily on the rise, “A recent government study found a 400% increase in prescription drug abuse between 1998 and 2008” (Schreiner 531). The excessive use of prescription drug abuse is leading to nonmedical use of the drugs, and creating addiction. Furthermore society is paying an extreme amount of money in this battle. With this drug abuse on the rise, legislators must create a law preventing doctors and pharmacists from over prescribing prescription medications as well a law to require they both participate in drug monitoring programs to prevent drug abuse. Now is the time that doctors and the pharmaceutical industry must be held accountable for their role in causing one of America’s worst addictions. The over medication of prescription drugs in the United States must be brought to an end by legislators creating laws to stop

Society is blind in thinking there are no health concerns regarding prescription drugs. Prescription drug corporations often do not state the repercussions of certain drugs. One of the most common diseases is drug-induced liver disease which can cause tremendous harm to the liver. This disease can cause the liver to misbehave and also cause damage to the body. An example is discolored and itchy skin. Countless times individuals develop fatal diseases while they are young but the diseases do not evolve until later on in life. This often times results in inoperable illnesses that shorten the lifespan of individuals. Society is not properly informed about the side effects because numerous individuals turn a blind eye to the effects. For example, on a television commercial only a marginal amount of people listen to the effects at the end of the commercial. Many of these diseases caused by prescription drugs are serious, including hepatitis and necrosis. Hepatitis is mild to moderate inflammation of liver cells, while necrosis is a more severe inflammation which causes the depletion of liver cells. Prescription drug safety is often overlooked, when in fact; the drugs can be extremely harmful to the

In 1969, when Richard Nixon was president, he was looking for a way to consolidate existing federal drug control laws into one powerful federal statute to better control what many felt was a growing problem, which was the rapid increase of drugs (Haerens & Zott 19). By 1970, they produced the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, and it finally went into effect on May 1, 1971. This act divided substances into categories based on their medical use and potential for addiction; marijuana was classified as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it is labeled as carrying a high potential for abuse, without currently accepted medical use in the United States, and/or lacking accepted safe use even with medical supervision (Gillard 15). Since

Since the early 1960’s there have been an alarming increase in drug use in the United States in 1962, four million Americans had tried an illegal drug. By 1999, that number had risen to a staggering 88.7 million, according to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

The main type of dangerous drugs you hear about are the illegal ones. However, if you abuse prescription drugs they can have major consequences as well. Most people use drugs prescribed by doctors or physicians without abusing them. The estimated amount of adults using prescription drugs as a recreational use is as high as 20%. Many of the people using prescription drugs do not understand how harmful the side effects of these drugs are. Most people abuse prescription drugs to get the better mood, adrenaline rush, or to ease mental or physical pain. Most of the abused prescription drugs are sedatives, tranquilizers, or painkillers. These are widely found and easy to obtain. Many of the addicts are either prescribed by a doctor or stolen from a friend or relative. Most of the addicts are oblivious

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).

In 1938, Congress passed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which, after several amendments and revisions, formed the basis of modern federal policy regarding pharmaceuticals. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determines the legal status of pharmaceutical products and also plays a major role in determining the legal policies that apply to

Over the years, drug abuse has been a rising problem in almost every country in the world. Day by day more people are involved in this endless cycle of drug craving, money shortage, and drug related crimes. Congressmen and politicians of United States, seeing this unstoppable crime wave which is about to spread throughout the country, begin to address various kinds of possible solutions to end this crisis in the most efficient and effective way. As discussed in Alan M. Dershowitz's "The Case for Medicalizing Heroin" and Charles B. Rangel's "Legalize Drugs? Not on Your Life," the most popular proposition set forward by growing number of leaders now is to legalize the use of drugs; but will it help solving the problem or make it even worse?

Why does so many people abuse prescription drugs? Some will say it is safer than street drugs since it is FDA approved. Is it because prescription drugs are easier to get a hold of and sometimes cheaper? Some believe it is safe for them to consume because it was given to them by a Physician. That is not the case many Doctors have given out medication because the patient will come in knowing what symptoms to say to get what they need. In today’s time, it is so easy to run to the doctor and get some sort of prescription drug. It does not take much to get one, most doctors today do not even try to find the main cause to the problem they just write a prescription and send a person on their way. This is a one major problem that leads to abuse of prescription drugs. Why would someone want to take something if it is not going to help them with the main problem? So the person is not getting help on what could be causing their problem, but given something to ease the problem. As soon as the medication wears off, the problem is back. Of course sometimes it may help in fixing the problem but in most cases