In the United States, there is a serious epidemic that has engulfing the rich and the poor, as well as the young and the elderly. Prescription drug abuse is the second most common addiction in the United States, and is rapidly growing. In order to combat the abuse of pain medications, doctors, pharmacies, local, and state agencies should set up criteria to prevent prescription pills from being abused. Furthermore, with the introduction of technology, detecting and preventing pain pill addiction should be the up most priority in the medical field.
On January 22, 2008 a rumor first started appearing on gossip websites like Us Weekly and various other sights about Heath Ledger's supposed death. It seemed like false information. Heath Ledger was a well known actor for his coolness. School can be very tough for some students, but when you want something, you will push and strive through the tough hard times. I can say I that I wasn't a straight A student, nor one that loved the idea of homework or learning. The truth I despised school and all the stuff that came with it. I'm going to tell you my educational roller coaster.
I started my first year as a freshman at Monache High School. I felt like I was going somewhere in life. I had a lot of friends in all of my classes. I loved the idea of being in high school with all my friends, hanging out together, doing homework together, It sounded good at the time.
All the homework from all the classes piled up. Oh my god! I hate homework. I started off real bad. The first couple of weeks I was slacking so much that I never did my homework, slept in class too, and I knew what I wasn't doing good. I really didn't care I thought to myself it's only the first year of high school I still have ...
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...ress, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "The High-Flying Dilemma."San Francisco Medicine 22 (Apr. 2012). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
"Drug Take-Back Programs Can Limit Access to Prescription Medications."Prescription Drug Abuse. Ed. Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Examining Takeback Programs as Substance Abuse Policy." 2012.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
"Drug Take-Back Programs Can Limit Access to Prescription Medications."Prescription Drug Abuse. Ed. Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Examining Takeback Programs as Substance Abuse Policy." 2012.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
"Prescription Drug Abuse." The White House. The White House, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.
From the inception of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the social concept of drug addicts or those recovering from abuse as “criminal deviants” is still stigmatized today even though we have gained ground and won the war on dru...
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.
More than often, American’s argue that if we have the technology to gain access to these “miracle meds”, then we should take advantage of it. To receive an opposing view, the National Institute of Drug Abuse asked teens around America why they think prescription drugs are overused, and the results were shocking; 62%: “Easy to get from parent's medicine cabinets”, 51%: “They are not illegal drugs”, 49%: “Can claim to have prescription if caught”, 43%: “They are cheap”, 35%: “Safer to use than illegal drugs”, 33%: “Less shame attached to using”, 32%: “Fewer side effects than street drugs”, 25%: “Can be used as study aids”, and 21%: “Parents don't care as much if caught”. I believe the major problem here isn’t the medication, but instead the fact that our nation is extremely uninformed on the “do’s and dont’s” of prescription medication. When “the United States is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world's prescription drugs” (CDC), there is a problem present, no matter the reason. Clearly, many critics believe the breathtaking amount of pills we consume in America is simply for the better good, but tend to forget the effects that are soon to follow.
“Introduction to Gateway Drugs: Opposing Viewpoints.” Gateway Drugs. Ed. Noel Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008.
Drug addiction doesn 't result from medical use and it is supported as well by Sees & Clark (1993). The drug brings optimal treatment to patients who are in pain. Gilson et al. (2004) also advised that its effects are predictable due to medical purpose and removing it may cause an unacceptable harm to a patient. Addiction and misuse of opioid medication depends on the period of usage. As according to Compton & Volkow (2006), the longer the drug is exposed to an individual, the higher the possibility for development of addiction as well. The access as well nowadays for the drug is openly easy for the public. There have been occasions that physicians are no longer needed for the prescription of the drug; hence it becomes an illicit drug. In recent studies the frequency of analgesic misuse or addiction ranges from 5% to as much of 50% of different
The varieties of pharmaceutical and prescription drugs that are available to the public provide many different consequences, which could lead to other health problems among users. Opioids, for example, are typical...
Moore, L. D., & Elkavich, A. (2008). Who's Using and Who's Doing Time: Incarceration, the War on Drugs, and Public Health. American Journal Of Public Health, 98(5), 782-786.
Wolf, M. (2011, June 4). We should declare an end to our disastrous war on drugs. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/870200965?accountid=14473
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 United States have occasionally tried to overcome this problem with policies such as “War on Drugs” and the government has spent billions of dollars to fight drug abuse, but the enforcement law has been costly and counterproductive. The United States government needs to shift its spending from drug law enforcement to treatment, education, and prevention as optional policies that can do well (Paley, 2014).
Addiction often time leads to an individual’s health declining, their financial security declines. Drug addicts have a hard time keeping a job, which leads to having trouble with the law, and sometimes even leads to being homeless. Drug addiction is a sickness, if it is not being taken serious, and without the right kind of treatment addicts will just find their way back to using, even after they have served their time in prison. The Administration’s National Drug Control Strategy recognizes that addiction is a disease, and that the criminal justice system can play a vital role in reducing the costs and consequences of crimes committed by drug-involved offenders. If drug addicts received proper treatment and proper help needed to overcome the addiction, which will give those individuals a new opportunity to live a clean healthy life, and will contribute to society in a positive
The increase of addiction to prescription drugs has increased over the past few years. As a result the amount of pharmacy robberies has amplified as well. Certain patients are going to multiple physicians in order to get controlled prescriptions; this is called “doctor shopping.” They are then filling the prescriptions at different pharmacies by paying “out of pocket,” without insurance. Filling prescriptions without insurance and at different pharmacies allows patients to get the medications more frequently. Insurance companies usually limit people from filling prescriptions early (before their medication runs out). It has been too simple to get control prescriptions from doctors in this day and age. Physicians have been arrested for writing narcotic prescriptions unnecessarily and too easily. Some patients even steal prescription pads from the doctor’s offices, in order to write their own prescriptions for controlled medications. It is the pharmacist’s role to spot these “fake” prescriptions. This is a vicious cycle and it needs to be stopped.
"Prescription Drug Abuse: Strategies to Stop the Epidemic." - Trust for America's Health. N.p., 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.
Freshman year of high school was one of the hardest years for me. Often I found myself wishing I could be homeschooled, I absolutely dreaded going to school every day. Every aspect in my life was different now, two of my siblings had moved out, my other sister was in college, and there was much more responsibility put on me at home. On top of that the transition into high school was tough for me, friends had moved or changed and the classes were harder.