Prescription Pain Abuse

We are seeing an increase in the number of people who are dying from overdoses, predominantly after abuse of prescribed opioid analgesics. This disturbing trend appears to be associated with a growing number of prescriptions in and diversion from the legal market.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention 44 people die each day in the United States of America due to an overdose of a prescription painkiller (“Joining the Fight”, n.d.). A staggering 2.1 million people in the United States suffer from substance abuse disorders and the number of people using opioids for nonmedical uses is continuing to rise (Volkow, 2014). Who is to blame for these outrageous numbers? I believe that the patient and the pharmaceutical companies are to blame for this on-growing problem. Some of the largest contributing factors to these growing statistics is that the pharmaceutical companies have very aggressive marketing of the medicines, which in turn leads to a rising number of prescriptions written for

The United States is facing a growing epidemic of prescription opioid (PO) abuse, which contributes to increasing mortality rates. Opioids are opium-like medications used to treat severe and chronic pain. Prescription opioid drug abuse is the intentional misuse of opioids without a prescription or use of the medication in a manner other than it was prescribed, mainly with the sole purpose for euphoria. Within the United States, the rising abuse of opioids contributed to 14,800 deaths in 2008 which is four times more than the number of deaths from PO abuse in 1999 (CDC, 2011). These deaths were marked mostly as unintentional as opposed to suicide or unknown causes and continue to rise each year (Chakravarthy, Shah, & Lotfipour, 2012).

According to the Institutes of Medicine an estimated 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, with a quarter of them reporting that the pain debilitates their quality of life. The war against chronic pain began in late 1980s when researchers began investigating the thought that millions of Americans might be suffering needlessly. Unfortunately, with the number of people suffering from chronic pain increasing, the FDA approved the commercial use of opioids without extensive research on the after-effect of long term opioid use. This lack of care from the FDA permeated to medical clinics across the United States, and a culture of pain was adopted. New health regulations were implemented in order to measure pain as a parameter for a patient’s health. At the same time opioid manufacturers saw an opportunity to profit and went on a marketing frenzy. Even after opioid addiction began popping up this prescription drug financial machine continued to churn, feeding on rural areas where the epidemic was harder to manage. As addictions flourished so did the black market. In attempts to curb both, pharmaceutical companies began introducing new pain killers under the advent of being safer and less addictive than their predecessors. Once again the mistake of approving drugs without adequate research was made and the cycle continued. Through a hapless combination of greed and feckless oversight, America’s genuine desire to eliminate its pain snowballed into such widespread

A relatively new form of contract that has received increasing attention, particularly in the pain medicine community, is known as an “opioid contract.”With the increased emphasis upon the importance of effective assessment and management of pain to quality patient care, and the growing acceptance of the need that some patients with moderate to severe chronic pain (of both malignant and nonmalignant origins) have for opioid analgesics, the opioid contract has been touted as a means of carefully circumscribing the parameters Within which opioid therapy will be provided.7 such contracts have not meet with universal acceptance (Lipkin 2012).. Some physicians argue that such contracts place an adversarial, or at least accusatory, cast upon the physician–patient relationship, while others maintain that to single out opioid analagesia for such contracts inappropriately places the Physician in the role of drug law enforcer (Lipkin 2012).

Doctors and other medical professional specialize in providing quality medical care for their patients, are now fighting to control pain without the risk of misuse and abuse of prescribed medications by their patients. One disadvantage of quality care is providing opioid medications to help control extreme pain for some patients. Many patients have become dependent on opioid—highly addicted painkillers such as fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, propoxyphene, and methadone. According to 21 Health Organizations and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) cited by ACPM, “effective pain management is an integral and important aspect of quality medical care, and pain should be treated aggressively” (the American College of Preventive Medicine, 2011). Aggressively fighting patients’ pain with opioid medications have led to an increase rate of addictions to the level in which it is known as uncontrollable epidemic in today’s society.

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.

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

In 2008, prescription drugs spending was $234.1 billion, almost 6 times the $40.3 billion spent in 1990. Moreover, 70% of Americans were found taking at least one prescription drug and more than half of those patients were already on two or more prescription drugs. As a result, drugs-related deaths have become the fourth leading cause of death in America, and one of the biggest culprit is the overprescribing of opioid pain medications. The use of hydrocodone and oxycodone, the two most common opioids, by Americans is frightening. In fact, statistics show that 99% and 80% of the world’s use of hydrocodone and oxycodone respectively are done by Americans. Thus, the rate of death due to opioids overdose has quadrupled since 1999. In most cases, opioid pain medications are usually reserved specifically for cancer patients or patients in hospice care when their pain becomes unbearable. Opioids can also be used for a maximum of three days to relieve short-term pain, but a survey from the National Safety Council showed that almost all of the doctors prescribe the medications for a longer period of time and disturbingly, 20% percent of the doctors put their patients on the pills for one month. I believe this isn’t due to bad intention from the doctors. They just want to help their patient feel better but they’ve underestimated the addiction that comes hand in

As the number of patients who have pain increased in order to decrease the pain and intensity of pain. Thus, the use of opioid became a class of choice to relieve the pain. (REARDON, ANGER & SZUMITA, 2015.). abuse of pain medications and opioid became a public health concern in the U.S. according to 2007 data from National survey on drug use and health that 5.2 million abuse opioid. The sources of getting the medication were friends or repeatable opioid prescription. Opioid dependent patients with pain have many complications e.g. high morbidity, morbidity, family issues and they do

In some areas of California, heroin overdose deaths have leveled off, but citizens are still losing their lives to the drug. In Los Angeles County alone, there were 225 heroin deaths in 2010. In 2012, this number dropped to 29, before rising to 46 in 2013.

It’s a societal norm to seek out a physician when you are in pain, and society’s expectation is that the physician will do something about it. Sadly there will always be those who abuse the systems in place. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2011, found that approximately 52 million people have used prescription drugs for non medical reasons. Statistics show that roughly 80% of heroin addicts initially misused prescription opiods (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015). There is always potential that taking prescription opiods can lead to patient abuse. “Unintentional overdose deaths involving opioid pain relievers have quadrupled since 1999” (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2011).

When an individual walks into a doctor's office they expect to receive treatment for his or her ailment and walk out. In a few weeks with proper rest and medication, the person is back to normal, except the person is not. The pain, never-ceasing, the patient is forced to live the remainder of his or her's life on prescription drugs. The blame should not be placed on the doctor, but rather the pharmaceutical industry. Profiting on system preservation and disease control, these companies are creating addictions by treating a patient with a disease that was never resolved. Once healers now stealers, pharmaceutical companies' are prescription thugs.

Prescription drug abuse is a serious problem in today’s society. Prescription drug abuse is taking medicine prescribed for someone else, for another purpose, a larger dose than prescribed, in a different way than one is specifically prescribed. (“Prescription Medline” par. 1). This includes using a prescription to get high by crushing, snorting, or injecting them (“Prescription Medline” par. 4 and 5). By using these methods to put them into the body, it gives a stronger high than by just consuming it (“Signs of Painkiller Abuse & Addiction” par. 2).

“In 2014, nearly two million Americans either abused or were dependent on prescription opioid pain relievers (“Injury Prevention and Control: Opioid Overdose,” 2016.)” The CDC is now saying that the United States is in an epidemic. The purpose of this paper is to explore the increasing drug use in the United States over the last decade. The primary focus is on the administration of opioid analgesics and the addicting mechanisms of these medications, and what they are used for. It will talk about the deaths related to these medications and the health effects, and the other types of drugs these medications can lead to, such as heroin. This paper will also talk about the costs related to opioid analgesics in the hospitals and in the community, and what we as health care providers can be doing to help stop this epidemic.