Prescription narcotics Essay

The use of opioids and other drugs continues to gradually increase in the United State. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of overdose deaths involving opioids has quadrupled since 1999” (CDC website). Individuals are abusing prescription opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone. Prescriptions opioids that are supposed to be used as pain relievers, cough suppressants and for withdrawal symptoms are being use by individuals in order to feel relaxed or for the overwhelming effect of euphoria. These types of drugs are to be taken orally, but people are snorting, smoking, and injecting them in order to get a better high. I have personal encounters with opioid drugs and opioid abuser on a regular

Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic in the United States especially among the youth of our country. The Partnership for a Drug Free America says that 2,500 teens a day abuse prescription drugs. Abuse of these narcotics can lead to serious mental and physical consequences. Why is this such a problem, what can we do to solve it, and how is it affecting our social lives?

Prescription drug abuse is the type of problem that can potentially have an effect on a large number of Americans. In 2003, the National Institute on Drug Abuse did a “Monitoring the Future Study” of 8th, 10th, and 12th, graders and found that 10.5% of 12th graders reported were misusing Vicodin and 4.5% of 12th graders had taken OxyContin without a prescription. Vicodin is a popular pain medication prescribed for some of the most common medical procedures, such as wisdom teeth removal. It is an opioid-based pain medication that diminishes pain; it is highly addictive when not used in accordance with the prescribed dosage. OxyContin is a narcotic similar to morphine, containing a high dose of oxycodone. Since its initial approval in 1995, it has gotten a great deal of attention because of the large number of overdoses it is associated with.

Through my observations of the Narcotics Anonymous meeting I believe that my analysis could be beneficial to the realm of medicine. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014) released a study that displayed, “health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.” Considering the mass amount of prescriptions being written nationwide, it is not surprising that one of the members in the NA meeting I attended was able to easily obtain painkillers from her doctor. The specific interaction I encountered during the Narcotics Anonymous meeting where the woman described that her addiction was being supported by the constant prescriptions written by her doctor

In February of this year, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma announced that it would no longer be marketing its painkillers to doctors. The company alerted its employees that it will get rid of half of its sales force and send a letter to doctors this week notifying them that salespeople will no longer be going to clinics to market their opioid products. The opioid crisis began with the release of

America is at war. We have been battling drug mishandle for very nearly a century. Four Presidents have by and by battled against medications. Sadly, it is a war that we are losing. Tranquilize abusers keep on filling our courts, healing centers, and detainment facilities. The medication exchange causes rough wrongdoing that assaults our neighborhoods. Offspring of medication abusers are ignored, manhandled, and even surrendered. The main recipients of this war are sorted out wrongdoing individuals and street pharmacists.

Opioid abuse is a growing epidemic within the United States. Not only are people abusing the prescription forms of opioids (such as oxycodone - OxyContin, hydrocodone - Vicodin, codeine, and morphine) by taking more than they are supposed to, but they are also being bought, sold, and used on the streets illegally; such as heroin. Opioids are highly addicting because of the high they can induce in a person, causing a dependence and yearning for continued use (NIDA, n.d.) In 2007, the United States was responsible for over 99 percent of the global consumption of hydrocodone and 83 percent of the global consumption of oxycodone (United Nations Publications, 2009).

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.

“More than 16,600 people a year, die from overdoses of drugs, including Methadone, Morphine, and Oxycodone (OxyContin) and Hydrocodone combined with Acetaminophen (Lortab and Vicodin)” stated Consumers Report. The drugs listed above are all examples of Opioids. They are individual drugs that launch endorphins to the central nervous system which controls pain and relieves the severity of pain felt or silences it. Opioids also generate a sense of exhilaration and a calmness which is a product of the Analgesic effect. That feeling is one of the main reasons why people abuse opioids, they

Death by drug overdose is quickly becoming a leading cause of death in the United States, surpassing deaths from automobile accidents and firearm related deaths in 2013. Prior to the 1990’s, opioid medications were only used to treat severe pain, mostly pain due to severe accidents, surgery or cancer. This changed when Purdue Pharmaceuticals initiated an aggressive, misleading campaign for their new powerful opioid drug Oxycontin. Alleged to be a non-addictive wonder drug suitable for almost any type of pain, Oxycontin flooded the market. Pain management lobbyist, funded by the U.S. opioid manufacturers were able to convince the medical community to ease the restrictions on prescribing opioids. The use of opioids for commonplace ailments from

To help combat the opioid crisis, there are some existing policies that have been set in place by the government and various agencies. For instance, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have implemented the use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). These state-run programs are electronic databases that track down the prescriptions of controlled substances, including opioids. Physicians and other medical personnel can utilize this database to look at specific information such as the type of drug prescribed, the quantity, and so on. In addition, they can look at a patient’s history with controlled substances, which in turn helps them to avoid the prescription of controlled substances to a person with possible

Utilize and utilize related probems will be more common if the substance is lawful. Denial will lessen, not dispose of, utilization and manhandle, but rather with three central costs: bootleg trades that can be brutal and debasing, implementation costs that surpass those of controlling a legitimate market, and expanded harm per unit of utilization among the individuals who use in spite of the boycott. We might want to know the long-run impact on utilization of changes in both cost and the nonprice parts of accessibility, including legitimate dangers and shame. There is currently a writing evaluating the value flexibility of interest for illicit medications, however the assessments shift generally starting with one investigation then onto the next and many examinations depend on studies that may not give satisfactory weight to the substantial clients who overwhelm utilization. Also, authorization would most likely include value decreases that go a long ways past the help of verifiable information. Numerous region, state, and government activities target tranquilize use among criminal guilty parties. Ye t most do little to diminish medicate utilize or wrongdoing. A special case is the medication courts process; a few executions of that thought have been appeared to decrease sedate utilize and other unlawful conduct. Tragically, the asset force of medication courts constrains their potential extension. The prerequisite that each member must show up

There are three types of prescribed abused drugs: opioids, depressants, and stimulants. The most powerful is opioids. Opioids are used to block out pain. Some of these include opanas, oxycontin, and roxicodone, and 5.1 million Americans abuse them regularly (Drugabuse.gov). Some of those pills can cost any where from five dollars a pill all the way up to ninety dollars a pill (Drugs a-z) and could even cost more than that depending on where you live. Some of the street names can be roxy, o.p.s, oxy, and captain coden(Drug abuse.gov). ´“At the age of 20, I became an addict to a narcotic,which began with a prescription following a surgery.¨´-James. People normally become addicted to painkillers because of doctor giving them prescriptions after a major surgery.

The definition of the term narcotics has changed over the years and for the most part has been loosely applied. Originally the word was related to certain psychoactive compounds with sleep-inducing properties, but in some law enforcement circles it simply refers to any illegal or prohibited drug. However, a more widely accepted definition being used is that of narcotic analgesics described as pain relivers and associated with opioids.

If I suspected a nurse was diverting narcotics, I would immediately run a urine test on the patient to see if in fact, the medication was absent or not at the correct levels. I would then call the nurse into my office to see if there were any physical characteristics of drug abuse or suspicious behavior. I would assign a new nurse to the patient and wait for the lab results to come back in. Also, I would check nurse records for frequently lost or wasted medication. If lab results showed that the patient was not receiving their correct dosage of medication, I would immediately send the nurse for a drug test. I would reassure the patient’s family that their loved one was in good hands and follow proper policies and protocol regarding the nurse.