Prescription Opioids Erin Daly

Opioid use in the US has increased over the years, and this has led to an increase in substance abuse. Substance abuse is not only associated with use of illicit drugs but also prescription drugs. In 2015, of the 20.5 million reported cases of substance abuse, 2 million had an abuse disorder related to prescription pain relievers and 591,000 associated with heroin.1 The increase in substance abuse disorder has led to an increase in opioid related death. In 2015 drug overdose was the leading cause of accidental death in the US with 52, 404 lethal drug overdoses.2

Opioid addiction is so prevalent in the healthcare system because of the countless number of hospital patients being treated for chronic pain. While opioid analgesics have beneficial painkilling properties, they also yield detrimental dependence and addiction. There is a legitimate need for the health care system to provide powerful medications because prolonged pain limits activities of daily living, work productivity, quality of life, etc. (Taylor, 2015). Patients need to receive appropriate pain treatment, however, opioids need to be prescribed after careful consideration of the benefits and risks.

Opioids are causing deaths of children of all ages, and it is due to the “carelessness and callousness” of parents. The way the children/teens are getting the drugs is from a parent/guardian not taking proper precautions to hide their prescription drugs. Now, due to the little to no access teens have to prescription drugs, teens have upgraded to street drugs. The effect opioids have on children is much greater than mental health, “according to an analysis of discharge papers collected every three years from a representative sample of pediatric hospitals nationwide, 13,052 children were hospitalized for poisonings from opioid prescriptions. Of those, 176 died.”(Washington Post)

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

While our major access to these drugs is doctors, we cannot simply lay blame on them, as there is not enough knowledge about these treatments to correctly appropriate drugs, and therefore extra is given (Hemphill 373). Alexander of the Department of Epidemiology of the Journal of the American Medical Association, states that “There are serious gaps in the knowledge base regarding opioid use for other chronic nonmalignant pain” (Alexander 1865-1866), which leads to the unfortunately large number of leftover drugs. In fact, the main place that people get their drugs are from leftover prescriptions (Hemphill 373).

In Nolan and Amico’s article, “How Bad is the Opioid Epidemic?” they argue the opioid epidemic has become the worst drug crisis in American history. Heroin and other opioids overdose kill more than 47,055 people a year. Deaths caused from drug overdose has outnumber as much as 40 percent compared to the death caused from car crashes in 2014 (Nolan and Amico 3). Furthermore, in 1999 there were only 15000 people died from drug overdose. This number has tripled in 15 years. Also, in his article, “America’s Addiction to Opioids: Heroin and Prescription Drug Abuse” Volkow also presents the fact that “with an estimated 2.1 million people in the United States suffering from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers in 2012 and an estimated 467,000 addicted to heroin. The consequences of this abuse have been devastating and are on the rise. For example, the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain relievers has

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.

If you watch the news it should come as no surprise that drug abuse and overdoses have increased dramatically in the United States. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as many as 36 million people abuse opioids throughout the world with 2.1 million in the U.S. who currently suffer from opioid abuse disorders (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2014). These astonishing numbers are only marginalized when comparing them to opioid related deaths in the United States. With an increase of 137 percent since 2000, deaths from drug overdoses now occur 1.5 times more often than deaths from motor vehicle accidents (Rudd Aleshire, Zibbell & Gladden, 2016). The opioid epidemic in the

Mike Alstott knows first-hand how opioids, when used correctly, can play an important role in managing pain and helping people to function, but he is also keenly aware of the growing crisis of opioid misuse and overdose. More American adults are dying from misusing prescription narcotics than ever before. An estimated 35 people die every day in the U.S. from accidental prescription painkiller overdoses resulting from things like not taking a medication as directed or not understanding how multiple

    There has been an increase in heroin and opioid abuse in america. It has been affecting everyone and the incoming generation greatly. The use of pain reliever drugs is often the leading cause to abusing opioids and/or heroin. These pain relievers are often addictive and once people are addicted and cut off from them they begin searching for other ways to satisfy their cravings. The prescription drugs are often easily dispensed to people so it’s easier to access. This easy access makes it easier for people to get a prescription, leading to a higher risk of addiction.

It is important for our culture in western society to educate doctors on how to modify and limit their prescribing behavior so that less people become dependent on opioid medication. Doctors must start limiting and monitoring the number of opioid prescriptions they administer to patients. Limiting the number of prescriptions will lower the chances for potential abuse within patients, as well as lower the ease of access and circulation of opioid medication on the streets.

The Opioid Crisis has grown tremendously throughout the years, the number of opioid prescriptions dispensed by doctors steadily increased from 112 million prescriptions in 1992 to a peak of 282 million in 2012, according to the market research firm IMS Health. The number of prescriptions dispensed has since declined, falling to 236 million in 2016.(CNN, Opioid Crisis Fun Facts, 2018, P6.). In 2016 there was 63,600 overdoses and 42,249 came from opioids, these drugs are getting easier to buy off the streets, so more people buy them because they are cheaper than some but get you the same high that they want from the other drugs. People get prescription drugs from either stealing them, or other people sell them to them, or they can even get them from their family, but they end up selling

Opioids and opioid addiction obviously effect those who find themselves abusing such drugs both legally and illegally. Arguably one of the worst effects of opioids is the destruction of the family unit. One thing that holds true is, no matter what type of family structure one lives in, every person in the family (both immediate and sometimes extended) is effected by the trauma of a family members abuse. Abuse can diminish a family’s financial, physical, and mental well-being.4 Any family of an opioid abuser is traumatized; however lower class families suffer the most. The financial instability and often nontraditional unit structure of lower class families renders them venerable to the negative constructs of opioid addiction.

First, for providers to use opioids as the first option in prescribing pain killers needs to be addressed. Knowing that opioids are very addictive should sway providers to look for other options for their patients before looking towards opioid type drugs. Second, once a patient is prescribed opioids for pain management, there needs to be limitations placed on how many pills the patient can have at one time. There also needs to be a limitation placed on the amount of time a patient can use any form of opioids. Third, once a patient’s prescription runs out, they often times start looking to find that same high by buying these drugs illegally off the streets. Therefore, after a patient stops using an opioid medication, they need to have some type of specialty care available to them (mandatory if used for a prolonged period of time) to address any potential withdrawal symptoms; care that can provide counseling and or medications that enable the patient to be weaned off of the drug. Fourth, the need to identify why patients are not seeking recovery is crucial. Not many opioid addicts seek treatment; the first step in recovery is to seek help. Fifth, determining how to get opioid addicts into a recovery program will help exponentially to get people away from opioid use and on the road to recovery. Sixth, opioid addicts do not have high success rates for continued recovery after leaving a treatment program. Identifying the needs of the addicts after treatment is one of the most important elements to staying clean and

The world of opioids can be divided into two categories: (1) illicit opioids and (2) prescription opioids. Illicit opioids include substances like heroin that people abuse to reach a euphoric and relaxed state. In contrast, prescription opioids are commonly used by doctors in a medical setting to treat pain. Some of these powerful painkillers include codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and methadone. While these prescription medications provide pain relief for patients who are recovering from surgery or injuries, they also pose serious risks when they are misused. Among these risks are addiction, overdose, and death.