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Persuasive Essay On Opioids

1689 Words7 Pages

America is in the midst of an epidemic that is growing at an exponential rate: opioid addiction. Despite laws and regulations, the use and abuse of opioids is increasing at an alarming rate, raising the death toll with it. America’s opioid epidemic affects the the lives of roughly two million citizens and counting each year. Contrary to past popular belief, Doctors and pharmaceutical corporations are among the largest distributors of opioid substances and deadly narcotics. Painkillers prescribed by doctors are some of the most addictive and deadly substances in the narcotic industry. Restructuring the pharmaceutical industry to better regulate the distribution of opioid painkillers is necessary in order to send those affected by America’s opioid …show more content…

“Since 2001, the opioid epidemic has cost the federal government an estimated one trillion dollars and 2016 through 2020 alone the cost is seen to top close to 500 billion dollars. Experts estimated that the nation's annual cost from the opioid crisis stood at $29.1 billion in 2005, then doubled to $60.9 billion in 2011, and then shot to $115 billion in 2017. Per person, Opioid induced deaths cost 800 thousand dollars a piece according to financial calculations”(CNBC). The effects of Opioid addiction on families is quite drastic as reasonably assumed. In recent years, foster homes around the nation have seen an influx of kids who have either been forced to leave home or been abandoned because of a family member suffering with opioid addiction. Living with family members who suffer from opioid addiction can create financial burdens and take a toll on mental and emotional health. Countless families each year are torn apart as well from losing a family member who lost their battle to drug

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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.

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“Everyday, more than 115 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids,” (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2018, Opioid Overdose Crisis). Opioid drug abuse has become a growing issue in the United States since the late 1990s. “In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates,” (Public Affairs, 2018, What is the U.S. Opioid Epidemic?). Opioids can be either prescription medications such as morphine, however heroin is also considered to be an opioid. Opioids have been proven to be highly addictive, and there has been an increase in misuse and overdose of opioid drugs.

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According to the Center for Disease Control, or the CDC, 44 people in the US alone die of a prescription painkiller overdose each day. Too many people look at this number as small, or insignificant when compared to the entire population of the US. As a community this number should be looked at as too large, and the efforts to minimize prescription painkiller abuse should not cease until that number has gone from 44 to 0. The US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy stated this, “We, as clinicians, are uniquely positioned to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic.” Opioids are the most commonly prescribed painkillers, and the most commonly abused include medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, meperidine, hydromorphone, and propoxyphene.

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