America’s number one killer, opioids. Opioids are “both prescription drugs and illicit drugs like heroin”(“How local organization”). They are both highly addictive and end up controlling the addicts life. Prescription opioids with brand names like oxycontin, percocet, and vicodin have been talked about in the media and glorified by the youth of today. Opioids are primarily used after a person has a serious surgery or operation to help manage pain for a short period of time.
Prescription opioids were first introduced in the late 1990’s when “health care providers and doctors started facing pressure to treat chronic pain more aggressively” (Terrell). At the time patients were told that the opioids were non-addictive and did not impact their health negatively, doctors were under that assumption as well. This was proven unquestionable wrong when more research was done. The opioid epidemic in the United States remains a leading cause of death and the issue must addressed.
Among the countless causes for this epidemic big pharmaceutical companies and health care providers take the blame for majority of this epidemic. Pharmaceutical companies began “marketing these drugs to medical providers as not addictive or harmful” (Terrell). This put millions of Americans at risk to abusing these drugs without them even knowing it. Since the doctors were not aware of the addiction component of these drugs they would prescribe these drugs for long term use without the proper supervision to chronic pain patients (“a brief history of the”). This caused an innumerable amount of these patients to become dependent on these drugs and soon after become addicted to heroin and other street drugs.
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This happened due to the highly addictive component of opioids. They work by “activate powerful reward centers in the brain” (“How local organization”) and this causes the addict to chase the high, making them feel like they would do anything to get the opioids. That could include committing crimes that they would usually not commitment in order to get money for these drugs. The opioid epidemic impacts a variety of groups in the United States. Those directly impacted by the epidemic are those addicted to the prescription opioids. These includes the “250,000 Blue Cross members have been diagnosed with opioid-use disorder” (White).
This number is only a small fraction of the opioid addicts in the United States and doesn’t include the addicts who do not have this insurance carrier or do not have insurance in the first place. Most Americans get their health insurance through their employer, therefore they are at the forefront of this epidemic as well. Multiple large companies have taken note of this growing problem and “80 percent of employers are concerned about the abuse of prescription opioids” (Pyrills). These companies are so concerned about this rampant epidemic due to the fact that it could cost them close to 18 billion dollars a year in medical costs and loss in performance. This now trickles down to the consumers, who now are affected by the loss of performance of these companies and may see worse service or products. Doctors also are directly affected by the opioid crisis.
There has been cases when doctors have been facing “threats from patients addicted to or illegally selling the drugs. These threats could cause many doctors to give in and continue feeding the habits of these addicts. The effects of this epidemic include the “$ 6 billion dollars” of taxpayers that is being used to go into programs to help these addicts get over the addiction. The most obvious effect is the death of americans, it had become the leading cause of death “for Americans under 50” (Terrel). The deaths continue to rise due to the fact that addicts begin to use harder drugs like fentanyl which is another opioid “50 times stronger the potency of heroin” (“treatment effects”) and their bodies can not take the rush of dopamine causing to stop breathing resulting in death. This epidemic is such a problem due to the fact that it has not stopped growing since the beginning with deaths from the opioid fentanyl rising to “over 92% over the past year to 22,000 in march” (“treatment effects”). This does not include the deaths from overdoses on prescription opioids.
With opioids being so highly addictive a promising solution to this epidemic is drug treatments. These drug treatments includes a combination of both buprenorphine which is used to help mitigate the withdrawal symptoms of the opioids and naloxone which helps block the dopamine receptors in brain to help reverse the effects of an overdose. Drug treatments have a promising track record and when implemented in France cut down the overdoses hugly by “allowing any doctor to prescribe buprenorphine” (“A strategy for”). This made it much easier for addicts to get access to the drug treatments and begin the road to recovery. Once these addicts are on these drug treatments they are under the supervision of a medical professional which adds another layer of safety for these addicts and encourages them to quit for good.
The problems faced with drug treatments is the cost involved and not being able to get the treatments to everyone due to no insurance or other financial restrictions. Addicts may also become depend on these drug treatments and if they do not have access to the treatment or try to come off of them it can cause a relapse (“US FDA approves”). With that being said everyone’s body metabolizes compounds differently and some many not respond well or at all to the drug treatments leaving them vulnerable to all the withdrawal symptoms a significant drawback of drug treatments. The feasibility of drug treatments is still up in the air due to the cost involved in it. The United States is redirecting close to “6 billion” dollars into different programs to help counter the opioid epidemic but most of these are rehab centers (“A strategy for combating”).
Doctors are at the forefront of this epidemic and have been shown to over prescribe these opioids a simple solution would be to have doctors stop over prescribing. Many doctors are made into what many call “pill mills”. This means they just prescribe the opioids that addicts request without a legitimate reason ultimately feeding their addictions (Ceniceros). The advantage of stopping the overprescribing is that it would be stopping the problem at one of the major sources. It would also stop patients family members from taking advantage of the doctors. In one case an elderly women was asking the doctor to prescribe a high dose of opioids which her body could not even metabolize.
It came out after questioning from the doctor that her grandson was attempting to get the opioids for his “personal use” (Ceniceros). This is just one of many cases showing the lengths addicts will go to get their pills and how this solution would be very beneficial. With that being said this also comings with many disadvantages. This includes the threats that doctors receive if they do not provide what the addicts the drugs they want. These threats range from “deaths threats to property damage”(Ceniceros). With the opioids being so addictive addicts will follow through with these threats in hope it will get them closer to getting what they want. Doctors also will become very timid about prescribing opioids and may not prescribe the opioids when they are legitimately needed in fear they will get the patient dependent on them. This solution would require no to little money to implement and would only require a simple passing of word to doctors explaining why.
Another way to expunge this epidemic is education. This would involve educating not only the general public, but medical professionals and emergency rooms as well. It would be easy to structure the educating off of the AIDS crisis because they are “linked the opioid epidemic to the HIV/AIDS crisis”(White). This would be very effective because how easy it would be to simple follow the same pattern and structure the whole education system. With drug overdose being “concentrated among the young” (“A strategy for”) It is very easy to get in front of the the group who are most likely to be exposed to opioids and opioid addiction. Presenting at high schools and colleges makes it very easy to get the informations in front right eyes will little effort.
This would also help young people learn to deal with emotional stresses other ways than restoring to drug use like opioids. This comes with many faults as well with it not being as effective to people who are already addicted to opioids leaving them without an option. It will also take emergency rooms and medical professionals along time adapted to the new information with “local emergency departments have yet to embrace evidence that they can help opioid users” (“Curbing opioid epidemic”). This could be detrimental due to how rapidly growing the opioid epidemic and how time is of the essence with this epidemic. The feasibility of education is that it requires a large amount of money and most high school aged and college aged kids will not take the information seriously enough.
The most feasible and effective solution to the opioid epidemic is to have doctors stop overprescribing opioids. It is the most feasible out of all of the solutions due to the fact that it is cutting the problem off at the source with medical professionals including doctors approach to pain management being a ¨major contributor contributor to the epidemic” (“a strategy for”). This will help patients look at different alternatives to pain medicine that are non addictive and do not negatively impacted their health. The other two solutions are only attempting to fix the after effects of the epidemic not stopping in for good.
