The Pros And Cons Of Prescription Painkiller Addiction

Then the pharmacist can destroy the drugs after denatured and rendered unusable (using soapy water or another suitable vehicle) to make a slurry before disposal. Narcotics and controlled drugs returned by patients should be kept in a secure location until they are destroyed.

Opioid abuse is deadly and silently decimating families across the country. It is legally used for a medication to treat severe pain but commonly used for patients after they come out of a surgery.The Opioid epidemic is a national health issue that needs to be addressed, and made a widespread topic of discussion.

Opioid Addictions can be very difficult to deal with, and admitting you have one and wanting to change can be even tougher. Addictions to opioids do not mainly only affect a person health but also affect your finances. According to Gee & Frank (2017), “The cost of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is about $5,500 per year. However, treatment of the addiction is only one element of the cost of caring for people with opioid dependence” (n.p.). The cost of things just keeps going up. Emergency rooms can be very costly and people typically try to avoid them. Gee & Frank (2017), discus the “average charges for opioid overdose patients treated and released from the emergency department are $3,397 per visit, while those admitted to the hospital racked up an average $29,497 in charges per hospitalization.” (Gee & Frank, 2017).

medicine of cancer patients is robbed often by a friend or family member. Also, children of people who constantly seek medications learn from the parents. Therefore the future is in jeopardy. Children may grow up thinking that pill popping is the norm and may not understand the dangers of it.

Prescription opioid abuse is the intentional use of prescribed pain medication, or analgesics, for uses other than or beyond the time limits of, what the prescription is written for. It has become a widespread problem in the United States and is growing quickly. Unfortunately, most of the blame falls on our healthcare system, which tends to take the “band aid” approach to health issues. Oftentimes, pain medications are overprescribed and undermanaged without addressing the origin of the medical ailment that is causing the pain. Due to the misconception that taking these FDA prescribed drugs are safe, rates of abuse with these drugs is on the rise. Accidental deaths due to prescription opioid overdose have increased dramatically since 1999, and surpass those caused by cocaine and heroin. Prescription opioid abuse has a tremendous negative impact on the individual, the healthcare system, and society in general. This paper will explore the trends, history, mechanisms, individual impact, societal costs, and the management and treatment of prescription opioid use and abuse.

Opioids, otherwise known as prescription pain medication, are used to treat acute and chronic pain. They are the most powerful pain relievers known. When taken as directed they can be safe and effective at managing pain, however, opioids can be highly addictive. Ease of access helps people get pain medications through their physician or by having friends and family get the medication for them. With their ease of access and being highly addictive the use and misuse of opioids have become a growing epidemic. Patients should be well educated on the affects opioid use can have. More importantly instead of the use of opioids, physicians should look into alternative solutions for pain management. While pain medication is helpful with chronic pain, it is also highly addictive, doctors should be more stringent to whom and how often they prescribe pain medication.

Primum non nocere or ‘above all, do no harm’ is a latin phrase that is the basis for the majority of medical ethics (expand on that). The question of whether or not heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) or methadone-assisted treatment (MAT) for drug addiction is morally or ethically sound boils down to two key component, what exactly constitutes harm, and what moral view of addiction does one have. In the matter of what exactly constitutes harm, a particular treatment that cares for an

Many people consider New Hanover County as a nice place to live. The website 10Best.com recently selected the waterfront in downtown Wilmington as the best American waterfront. However, all nice places have issues under the surface just like alligators living under the surface of the water in the Cape Fear River. The wicked problem facing New Hanover County is the opioid epidemic. Many communities across the United States share in this struggle. Over two million people become dependent on prescription pain pills and street opioids every year in the United States . Of those addicted, the deaths because of a heroin overdose have increased 533% between 2002 and 2016 in the United States. If the opioid crisis

Opioids are a class of drugs that are designed to relieve pain. They are synthetic forms of the naturally occurring opiate opium along with morphine and codeine, which are parts of the opium poppy. Prescription opioids include the painkillers hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), fentanyl (Duragesic), meperidine (Demerol), and hydromorphone (Dilaudid), amongst others. Opioids of this variety are prescribed for a variety of reasons ranging from severe acute pain resulting from injury to post surgery pain relief. Illicit opioids include heroin and any opioids that are not taken are prescribed. While helpful in treating pain that needs immediate attention, prescription opioids are not ideal to treat chronic pain. Opioids, both prescribed and illicit, are highly addictive and potentially dangerous.

Prescription opioid misuse has emerged as a significant public health issue in the United States. Since the late 1990s, nationwide sales of prescription opioids have risen 4-fold, and with this, the rate of admissions for substance use treatment and the rate of death from opioid overdose have grown proportionately.1

The effects of opioid overdose are traumatic, devastating, and preventable. It is estimated that there are 128,000 people addicted to opioids in New Jersey (Stirling, 2015). Furthermore, many of those addicted to the drug heroin became so after being prescribed narcotic pain killers. This is because when the prescription runs out the addiction is still in place. Those addicted can find pills being sold illegally but they can cost up to 30 dollars a pill. Heroin, costing only 5 dollars a bag according to law enforcement officials, is a much better deal (Stirling, 2015).

The rate of poisonings associated with drug overdoses has been on the rise, especially concerning those involving opioids (Paulozzie, Budnitz, & Xi, 2006). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not mince words regarding the status of opioid utilization in the United States: ?The United States is in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic? (CDC, 2016). Opioids are now the most common cause of prescription drug use deaths (Rudd et al., 2016). Even as overdoses associated with the more historic killers such as heroin and cocaine increased, opioid overdoses rose the fastest between 1990 and 2002 (Paulozzi, Budnitz, and Xi, 2006). The prescription opioid epidemic contradicts traditional assumptions of drug use being a problem with illicit drugs: a majority of those who overdosed had a prescription for their cause of death (Kolondy et al., 2015). As asserted by Paulozzi et al., ?licit drugs have therefore recently replaced illicit drugs as the most common cause of fatal poisonings in the US? (2006, p 624). Further, it is important to note that these numbers represent just a fraction of the problem of prescription opioid abuse. Other adverse impacts associated with the epidemic of prescription opioid abuse include non-fatal hospitalizations and infants born addicted to opioids (Kolondy et al., 2015).

Opioid addiction with prescribed and illegal substances has of late become a topic of concern within the United States. With this topic in the face of individual liberties, one must question the moral and legal obligations of society and of the government to control this outbreak of addiction. With one view, the side that would be in favor of Plato, one could argue that the use of any substance illegally is morally wrong and that people waste their lives if they even try opioids for something other than their intended purposes. On the other side, with the view of John Stuart Mill, one could argue that while the use of opioids could be considered wrong, government and society are not at right to prohibit individuals from using opioids, given several underlying assumptions. Of these two views, I argue that, while I agree partially with Plato, I agree more with Mill’s view that individuals should be allowed to use opioids if they so wish.

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).

The problem with opioids as a sole source of relief is that not only are they physically and psychologically addictive, but the user also begins to build a tolerance to the therapeutic effects. Eventually one requires higher doses in order to achieve the initial levels of pain relief. As the dose increases, so does the level of dependency and addiction. If a doctor refuses to increase the dose for the patient’s safety, the pain returns and patient may begin to feel the effects of opiate withdrawal. In worst-case scenarios people begin to abuse alcohol or seek out prescription pain medication illegally. Illicit and less expensive street drugs are often sought out if the afflicted can no longer afford their medications or cannot find a source of pain and addiction relief anywhere else. Purchase of street drugs becomes common when addiction begins to affect someone’s ability to keep a steady source of income. As a result, there has been a surge of opioid, heroin, and alcohol abuse and eventual overdose. (Dart, et al., 2015)