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Opioid use, addiction, and overdoses: essay
Essays on opioid abuse
Opioid misuse and abuse argumetative essay
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The opioids epidemic interventions are essential to prevent prescribed opioids abuse, promote safe prescriptions for individuals and decrease mortality rates. Furthermore, the goals in practicing safe and regulated medicine, enables the individual who needs opioids analgesics to control their pain and suffering. Implementing interventions to this issue would include holding health care professionals accountable for misconduct, educating and evaluating physicians, pharmacists, and monitoring prescribers to apply state laws and regulations. A collaborative approach to regulate, educate and monitor is inevitable for effective outcomes! Consequently, many physicians may possibly be hesitant prescribing opioids drugs to prevent penalties.
An ethical issue related to medical care is pain management and the inappropriate judgment of patients being labeled as “Drug Seeking”. There are statistics that prove there is a rise in abuse in opiates within communities. However, at what point does the nurse or provider get to decide what is an adequate pain threshold and how much they should endure? When does the ethical duty to relieve pain and suffering subside to personal biases?
However, from 2013 to 2014 there was a 20 percent increase in drug overdoses. (4) Individuals with opioid prescriptions need to be educated, counseled and given appropriate help when
Recent reforms can curb the opioid epidemic. Yes, health care professionals have realized the complex problem and they now understand the problem and what needs to be done. According to CQ Researcher, “Experts see some progress in the fight against opioid painkiller abuse. After peaking in 2012, the number of prescriptions written for opioids declined 12 percent between 2013 and 2015, according to IMS Health, a market research company. Symphony Health Solutions, a data company that studies the pharmaceutical industry, found an 18 percent drop in that period.”
Underlying Causes: The increase in the sale of opioids is considered to be the root of the opioid crisis, as the drugs have been proven to be highly addictive. An addiction to prescriptive opioids, however, can lead to an addiction to synthetic, illegal opioids, such as heroine or fentanyl, which are less expensive and easier to acquire. In fact, in their journal article, “Associations of nonmedical pain reliever use and initiation of heroin use in the United States” Pradip Muhuri and associates discovered that “the recent (12 months preceding interview) heroin incidence rate was 19 times higher among those who reported prior nonmedical prescription pain reliever (NMPR) use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent)” (Muhuri et. al). In other words, abusing prescription opioids significantly raises the chances of abusing illicit drugs, such as heroin.
“ Because they produce euphoria in addition to pain relief, they can be misused. Regular use- even as prescribed by a doctor can lead to dependence ,and when misused, opioid pain relievers can lead to overdose incidents and deaths” (Drugabuse.gov/opioids) Prescribing opioids have more dangers to the human than they do
I think that doctors should give patients more information when prescribing opioids to patients. Many people that just had a painful surgery take opioids to stop their pain and then shortly get addicted after from taking the pills, I believe people would not get as tempted, and feel like it is ok to take opioids, if they knew they were highly addictive. Allen, a recovering addict, had to research her symptom to find out why she was having this temptation to take these pain killing pills when she was not even in pain. Allen’s doctor never told her about the danger of these “painkillers” but once Allen found out, she was concerned about herself, and knew she was addicted and in
Prescription drugs (opiates only) have caused over 165,000 deaths within the last 15 years and is currently on the rise. Over 2 million Americans in 2014 were addicted to Opiate prescription narcotics. The most troubling fact is listed directly on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website: “As many as 1 in 4
Dependence on prescription opioids can stem from treatment of chronic pain and in recent years is the cause of the increased number of opioid overdoses. Opioids are very addictive substances, having serious life threatening consequences in case of intentional or accidental overdose. The euphoria attracts recreational use, and frequent,
Opioid Epidemic in the United States The opioid crisis has risen over the years here in America. The addiction to painkillers has caused many drug overdoses across America. According to the Vox," In 2015, more than 52,000 people have died from drug overdoses from linked to opioids such as Percocet, heroin, Oxycontin or even fentanyl. This problem did not become an overnight health crisis, but it has become quickly known in America. Expanding our drug treatment centers across America would provide the support to those who are addicted to drugs.
Most people will continue their drug abuse as they don’t want a way out of their getaway. Most people abuse easily accessible drugs like ones from doctors or friends who supply them drugs. Often people who want pain medications will go and get them prescribed to them. They use pain medications as a form of help for their struggles. With how easily these drugs are to get, people will take advantage of the drug.
“Every year 214 million prescription for opiods pain killers are given to patients” One of the most prescribed drug that causes overdoses are opioids. a high percentage of the population have issues with the addiction, and not everyone has the possibility to get help, some of them are alone who don't have anyone to help them or they don't have enough income for drug rehabilitation. at the same time rehab is charging thousands of dollars for help. While most people are struggling with money and it's easier and cheaper for them to buy or get drugs prescribed and make the drug help them forget their issues.
Although this epidemic has been surging for the past 30 years, there has yet to have been an effective solution to drastically reduce the number of deaths and recurring addictions. The U.S. government has implemented different solutions, but the use of opioids still prevails. Even though drug use is criminalized in most places in the U.S., people are still continuing to use and abuse drugs. While many different approaches are hypothesized to stop the use of drugs, new forms of opioid use and problems seem to arise. There exists stigmas, stereotypes, and false information that have spread about drug use and addiction which hinders people's abilities to be able to understand and offer help to addicts and drug users.
According to Michael Klein, “The most prescription drugs that are commonly misused are opioids, tranquillizers, sedatives, and hypnotics.” Unintentional overdose deaths involving opioid pain relievers have quadrupled since 1999 and have outnumbered those involving heroin and cocaine since 2002. (Klein). The reason some people abuse opioids is just to “get high”.
These pills, such as xanax and oxycodone allow people for short periods of time to withdraw from the harsh reality faced today. “Between 1997 and 2002, sales of oxycodone and methadone nearly quadrupled” (Okie). Around 15 years later and the prescription pill problem is continuing to skyrocket. Since prescription pills are dispersed out to anyone by doctors, many people do not realize that it is as much of an illicit drug as cocaine and heroin is. “Misinformation about the addictive properties of prescription opioids and the perception that prescription drugs are less harmful than illicit drugs are other possible contributors to the problem” (NIDA).