Opioids have often been ignored and forgotten in the news until recently. However, opioids have had a long medicinal history. The first recorded cultivation of opium was in 3400 B.C. in Mesopotamia, and for centuries since it has been used as a painkiller, anesthetic, and analgesic. During wartime in the 1800s, many soldiers were given morphine as a medical treatment for pain and anxiety; however, many of them developed addictions to the substance (The Atlantic, 2014). Heroin was later developed and, despite it being three times more potent, was marketed as a non-addictive alternative to morphine. Many other drugs such as Percodan, Vicodin, and various derivatives of opium began to be prescribed more frequently after pharmaceutical companies falsely assured doctors they were non-addictive. This only led to the dangerous spread of opioids, as they began to reach a wider audience.
Noting the long history of opioids, this paper serves to explore the current opioid epidemic in the United States. Since the 1950s, there
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Heroin (Schedule I) and Fentanyl (Schedule II) are two opiates that are widely abused, but not medically prescribed. Those who began their addiction to opiates from painkillers often transition to using heroin or fentanyl after their prescription runs out; around 80% of heroin users first abused prescribed opioids (National, 2017). This just goes to show the toxic after-effects of using opioids, even if they’re given for medical reasons. Further perpetuating the abuse of opioids in the U.S. today is the importation of heroin and fentanyl from Mexico and South America. According to the Council on Foreign Relation’s article on the epidemic, most of the U.S.’s supply of heroin comes from eight main drug cartels in Mexico and is smuggled across the southern border, while fentanyl is manufactured in China and is also smuggled over the Mexican