Opioid Prescription Drug Essay

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All of this leads to one question; what can be done to stop the heroin epidemic? The first thing we need to realize is that the heroin is not just going to disappear off of the planet it is here to stay. So we need to look at other methods other than the typical “crack down on dealers so it wont be around” this method will not work dealers will just be replaced with new dealers. The real problem comes from under education of the drugs. Growing up all I knew about heroin was that it existed and that it was bad. An increase in education about the drug would result in more people knowing about the dangers, making them less likely to use it. But the main issue with heroin is the underlying opioid addiction that people have. While pharmaceutical companies can not give doctors money for prescribing their drugs they can give them money to promote their drugs. …show more content…

There should be more restrictions on the opioid prescriptions. The CDC has guidelines for prescribing opioids. These include coming up with a plan and starting with a very low dosage with mandatory check ups. Opioids are not to be the first drug tried to treat pain. Opioid treatment should only be continued if improvements are seen in the patient. These are guidelines that have never once been gone over with me as a patient when they were prescribed to me. This can also be tied into the education of the drugs. According to the CDC guidelines the risks and benefits should be reevaluated constantly but this rarely happens. The CDC guidelines should be enforced with repercussions falling back on doctors that decide to not fallow them. Doctors need to be held accountable for their prescriptions if they can lead to addictions that ruin

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