Opioid Crisis Essay

The opioid crisis in the United States has been a problem since the late 1970’s. The use of cocaine started increasing by the early 80’s. In this time, many considered cocaine to be the drug for the famous. At one point, it was called “the champagne of drugs,” which made people feel like they were living like the rich and the high-line people. All celebrities and famous athletes would take cocaine, therefore, all their fans followed in their footsteps. Many did not even suspect this drug to be harmful in any way. If anything, it was a recreational drug, meaning it was done for enjoyment and pleasure. Many of the users claimed that it was non- addictive but that is not true. The National Survey on Drug Abuse, in 1982, researched that 22 million Americans used cocaine at least once (Discovering U.S. History, 1997).

Later on, health officials began to call cocaine an “epidemic.” Even after the death of comedian John Belushi in 1982, Americans have not been phased, and continued to use cocaine and the use of it still continued to rise. A growing amount of scientific literature showed us the addictive and fatal effects of cocaine. Many movies started portraying actors using cocaine like in the 1985 movie St. Elmo’s Fire. Later, cocaine use started to become an issue in high schools even though treatment centers started to increase in America. Reports told us that not only was the access of the drug easier to get, but easier to buy since the price of cocaine started to drop (Discovering U.S. History, 1997). The National Institute on Drug Abuse said in 1985 that society may experience an extreme cocaine epidemic in the future, and it caused an outburst of panic in