Notes

An underlying issue that can be overshadowed so easily because of how much of a regular occurrence an overdose is which is really sad. Especially in times now where it can get no media attention because of the coronavirus.
The root of the problem stems back to the nineties because of corruption involved in the medical industry with doctors overprescribing scripts to their patients. The government then attempted to stop this by creating a computer system in which doctors could see if patients have recently been prescribed opioids from other doctors in order to limit overprescription. However, there has always been a way for the people to fight back and gain possession of these drugs no matter what the government has implemented to attempt to stop them whether that may be by illegally buying drugs off the internet or by importing them from other countries.
In 2016, the CDC wrote an article about how the crisis had substantially developed from 2010-15, and they explained the actions that they were taking to be able to combat this new growth of addiction. They emphasized that they would support law enforcement oversight of medical facilities and that they have added more information to their guidelines to encourage people to use these drugs in the correct manner. The U.S. Department of health and services explained that they were using their funding to “provide support for cutting edge research” and to “promote the use of drug reversing medications.” The NIDA’s research stated that opioid overdoses increased by a whopping thirty percent in 2017, so clearly the work of the CDC is not correlating with a positive outcome to the issue.
For corporations with this much power in the health world, there needs to be more assertive action taken in order to put a halt to this issue

Zygmunt Dembek focuses on a niche that many would not consider when it comes to this issue. Many people think that people with opioid addictions are just “crackheads” that live on the streets, but mostly it is the complete opposite. As illustrated in the article that was previously mentioned, opioids regularly diminish the lives of the everyday person, and this is even more evident with the work of Dembek. His article focuses on how opioid abuse is becoming a major issue with military workers. He stated that “A 2011 confidential survey collected from 2,567 soldiers deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq found that ~ 44% of soldiers with opioid use reported no or mild past-month pain, including ~ 6% without pain.” This is an issue because of how extremely addictive opioids can be and if thousands of soldiers are taking it without any pain, then they may become addicted. With soldiers, it is very easy for them to say that they could be experiencing pain, considering all of the physical and mental conditions that they are up against while they are in service. Not only is this a small niche of soldiers in the study, but there are so many other professions that have workers that could make similar excuses for experiencing mild day to day pain because of their jobs.

Another person that wrote an anonymous article was just a college student that was taking medicine to stay awake to study, and eventually they go hooked.


In 2016, the CDC declared that they were “enhancing opioid use disorder treatment capacity and linkage into treatment, including medication-assisted treatment; implementing harm reduction approaches, such as syringe services program; and supporting law enforcement strategies to reduce the illicit opioid supply.” While this certainly helps to help flatten the curve of people who die from opioid abuse, it does not prevent these people from starting to abuse these drugs in the first place. This issue would not occur in America if people would use opioids the correct way. As previously mentioned, The original opioid crisis began because of doctors overprescribing opioids to their patients, who would then overdose on them. Nabarun Dasgupta explicated that “ “Suffering” may be a better focus for physicians than “pain.” Others have argued for “compassion. Health care providers have a role in reducing suffering historically and ethically. We have lost the commonsense imperative to engage those who use opioids in comprehensive care, especially during periods when access to opioids may be fluctuating.”
The roots of this problem were caused by people who faked pain, which is not complicated to do.
There need to be new mandates for doctors to be taught in training and in college that no one should be prescribed medicine unless there is a clear issue with their body or appearance. Many over the counter drugs are capable of handling “pain,” but once a person is visibly “suffering” the doctor should then enable their right to prescribe this person medicine.

Many people may argue that this may lead to greater abuse of over the counter medicine, in this case, it is imperative for the health care system in America to include a law that allows pharmacies to report repeating buyers that are purchasing many over the counter drugs within a small window of time. The health care system in the United States needs these revisions to put a cap on the roots of these problems.