Many of Americans have been diagnosed with chronic pain. In fact according to the Institute of Medicine 116 million United States adults live with chronic pain. The majority of these adults do not seem to receive the adequate treatment needed to help them to cope or to treat their pain. This is primarily due to the physicians not being able to efficiently diagnose their patients, and or the physicians lack the knowledge of the best ways to help manage the pain their patients are experiencing. This is why most people believe that Physicians are the main cause for the rise of prescription drug abuse (Garcia, 2013).
Between the years of 1999 and 2010 the amount of prescription painkillers that were sold to the pharmacies, hospitals, and the doctor offices nearly quadrupled. This means that physicians are prescribing four times more pain medications than they did 11 years ago. The amounts of overdoses caused by painkillers tripled in the years of 1999 thru 2008. Painkiller overdoses in the United States play a significant part in the morbidity and mortality rates, and is considered to be a public health problem (Garcia, 2013). Each year for the past eight years doctors have prescribed over 200 million prescriptions for pain killers and compared that to the number of adults in this country at only being 240, 000 (Wood, 2014).
The mass majority of people point fingers only at physicians and dentists and want to blame them and only them for the prescription drug problem. A study that was done in 2010 showed that 12 million Americans ranging from 12 years of age and older reported that they have abused prescription pain killers within the last year (Garcia, 2013). Majority of doctors would not prescribe 12 year old painkillers unless...
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...each other for addicts business. They began to give out prescriptions for opiates like they were giving out candy. Doctors can get their reviews on Yelp and if they did not give out prescriptions for painkillers than they would receive bad reviews and loose their patients business. All of the court cases and doctors being greedy has led our country down the path of addiction.
Works cited
Cepeda, S. M., Fife, D., Chow, W., Mastrogiovanni, G., & Henderson, S. C. (2012). Assessing Opioid Shopping Behavior. A Large Cohort Study from a Medication Dispensing Database in the U.S., 325-334.
Garcia, A. M. (2013). Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Balancing the Public Health Problems of Chronic Pain and Prescription Painkiller Abuse and Overdose, 42-46.
Wood, G. (2014). What Makes this Drug Crisis Different fom all Other Drug Crisis. Doctors Without Moral Borders, 1-4.
The documentary states that over 27,000 deaths a year are due to overdose from heroin and other opioids. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015 prescription pain relievers account for 20,101 overdose deaths, and 12,990 overdose deaths are related to heroin (Rudd et al., 2010-2015). The documentary’s investigation gives the history of how the heroin epidemic started, with a great focus on the hospice movement. We are presented with the idea that once someone is addicted to painkillers, the difficulty in obtaining the drug over a long period of time becomes too expensive and too difficult. This often leads people to use heroin. This idea is true as a 2014 survey found that 94% of respondents who were being treated for opioid addiction said they chose to use heroin because prescription opioids were “more expensive and harder to obtain (Cicero et al., 2014).” Four in five heroin users actually started out using prescription painkillers (Johns, 2013). This correlation between heroin and prescription painkiller use supports the idea presented in the documentary that “prescription opiates are heroin prep school.”
An ethical dilemma that is currently happening in the medical field regards pain management. Doctors and other medical professionals are faced with this ethical decision on whether to prescribe strong pain medication to patients who claim to be experiencing pain, or to not in skepticism that the patient is lying to get opioids and other strong medications. “Opioids are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain. Continued use and abuse can lead to physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms,” (Drug Free World Online). Opioids are often prescribed to patients experiencing excruciating pain, but doctors are faced with prescribing these drugs as an ethical issue because only a patient can measure the pain they are in, it is simply impossible
Almost one hundred years ago, prescription drugs like morphine were available at almost any general store. Women carried bottles of very addictive potent opiate based pain killers in their purse. Many individuals like Edgar Allen Poe died from such addictions. Since that time through various federal, state and local laws, drugs like morphine are now prescription drugs; however, this has not stopped the addiction to opiate based pain killers. Today’s society combats an ever increasing number of very deadly addictive drugs from designer drugs to narcotics to the less potent but equally destructive alcohol and marijuana. With all of these new and old drugs going in and out of vogue with addicts, it appears that the increase of misuse and abuse is founded greater in the prescription opiate based painkillers.
The United States of America accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, yet as a nation, we devour over 50% of the world’s pharmaceutical medication and around 80% of the world’s prescription narcotics (American Addict). The increasing demand for prescription medication in America has evoked a national health crisis in which the government and big business benefit at the expense of the American public.
Retrospectively in 2011, the US government elucidated that mortalities correlated with prescription opioid overdoses had surpassed heroin and cocaine fatalities coalesced. Uniquely, "National data has stated that the volume of opioid pills prescribed in the US since 1999 has quadrupled, and so has the number of opioid overdoses" (America's opioid crisis). Correspondingly, this constitutes a calamity that's indicative of the ramifications associated with the prescription pain medication crisis and it institutes how egregious the issue at hand really is-mortality wise. "Shockingly, the daily death toll is 142 fatal overdoses, 91 of them from opioids, adding up to almost 52,000 drug overdose deaths in 2015" (America's opioid crisis). Candidly,
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
An ethical dilemma that is currently happening in the medical field regards pain management. Doctors as well as other medical professionals are faced with this ethical decision on whether to prescribe strong pain medication to patients who claim to be experiencing pain, or to not in skepticism that the patient is lying to get opioids and other strong medications. “Opioids are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain. Continued use in addition to abuse can lead to physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms,” (Drug Free World Online). Opioids are often prescribed to patients experiencing excruciating pain, but doctors are faced with prescribing these drugs as an ethical issue because only a patient can measure the
On the typical day, over 90 people will die at the hand of opioid abuse in America alone (National). In fact, as of 2014, nearly 2 million Americans were dependent and abusing opioids. The Opioid Crisis has affected America and its citizens in various ways, including health policy, health care, and the life in populous areas. Due to the mass dependence and mortality, the crisis has become an issue that must be resolved in all aspects.
A retrospective cohort study found that there was a causal relationship between previous drug abuse and opioid abuse when opioids are used for chronic pain management. Therefore, the study determined previous drug abuse as the most significant risk factor regarding potential opioid abuse with a relative risk of 3.3.1 However, the study made no mention in its “methods” section of corrections for any confounding variables that may have greatly affected the data. One such confounding variable that needs to be adjusted for is severity of pain that each patient was experiencing. The likely result of an individual who has a more severe level of pain will be that of increased and prolonged use of opioids. Those with high levels of pain may experience a greater psychological dependence on opioids to cope with pain and lead a normal life. Consequently, the psychological dependence on opioids will lead to a physical addiction and abuse of opioids.
Understanding this problem begins with education about the type of drugs being abused. Opiates, or opioids, are a type of drug that relieves pain. Painkillers interact with nerve endings in the brain, stopping them from sending the message to your brain that you are in pain. Taking this medication results in lose of pain and a temporary high. If a patient takes pain pills for too long, they can begin to form a tolerance to lower doses, causing the physician to have to continually raise the amount being put into their bodies. After extended use, opiates can cause iatrogenic addiction, “most likely to occur with long-term use and/or high does of a prescription drug” (Kendal1 l75). Even though opiates have been used to treat pain in the medical field for years, research is indicating negative side effects. Some of these, interesting enou...
The roaring opiate epidemic in America continues destroying the addicted person and the very thing that plays an intricate part in returning to society as productive members; families and communities. Over the years, the opiate family has been helpful for individuals who suffer with chronic pain from severe issues such as cancer, gunshot pain, broken bones and even as simple as dental surgery (Sheahen, 2017 p.362). This literature review focuses on the prevalence of the substance user that overtime would need family and community support as well as treatment to recover. Despite this, managing pain can be difficult for even the non-addicted person and several factors should be considered when doctors are prescribing.
The New York Times Op-Ed Article ‘Congress Wakes up to the Opioid Epidemic’ highlights the dangerous effects of opioid addiction in the U.S., and how Congress should make changes to help end the epidemic. The article describes the vast number of Americans that are addicted to prescription and illicit opioids, making opioid overdose a common cause of death. Since 2000, the death rate of opioid caused deaths has tripled, and continues to increase. Congress has addressed this issue quite late, and the article suggests ways for the government to act on the epidemic. Some ideas mentioned were investing more money in treatment programs, training physicians to monitor prescription opioid use more carefully, and making Buprenorphine, a weaker opioid
Yet, many become addicted unintentionally, The Recovery Village reports, “By the time they no longer need the drugs for their pain, however, opiates have taken hold in the brain and cause a physical dependence starting an opiate addiction.” Since first introduced, many health care providers have been over exposing patients to new opioid options: Oxycodone, Fentanyl, Meperidine, etc. Doctors are well aware of the many alternatives to narcotic pain medication. Many adolescents are being prescribed opioids for pain relief, but end up becoming addicted. Putting these medications at the hands of young patients can lead them to misuse them, such as sharing with friends and overdosing. As stated by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, “People often share their unused pain relievers, unaware of the dangers of nonmedical opioid use. Most adolescents who misuse prescription pain relievers are given them for free by a friend or relative.” Society sees these pain medications as acceptable just because they are prescribed and recommended by a doctor. According to a national survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2016, 116 people died every day from opioid-related
Generally, opioidaddiction appears to be an American problem. Painkillers prescriptions in America grew from 76 million to over 200 million every year between 1991 and 2011. Vicodin, Percocet, OxyContin, and Oxycodone are some of the opioids prescribed. The potency of opioids increased with the increase in volume.
America has a problem with drugs. In order to understand the problem, we first need to understand what is considered a drug. It is “any ingestible substance that has a noticeable effect on the mind or body”. (Schmalleger, 2011) Drugs are used for medicinal as well as recreational purposes. Unfortunately both types of drugs have played a role in American culture.