Opioid Crisis in America: Everything You Need to Know

Introduction 

Opioids are a class endogenous and exogenous pharmacologic substances used in the therapeutic management of chronic pain. They include a wide range of legal and illegal substances, including heroin, oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl. The functional paradigm of opioids involves receptors that inhibit nerve transmission cells from causing pain. In the US, opioids use dates back to the 18th century with the introduction of opium to manage pain. However, since the commercialization of opioids as a pain management medication in the 1980s, a high prevalence of abuse led to widespread addiction rates. Consequentially, it has led to significant negative financial, social, and health impacts on American families. The Opioid Crisis in America has destroyed many families throughout the country. The United States Government needs to designate a better way of distributing opioids, so that it is not as accessible to people who abuse it. The best approach to resolve the Opioid crisis is to restrict Opiates and look to alternative medicines for treating pain. 

The Medical benefits of Opioids 

Chronic pain causes devastating pain that causes extensive limits to physical activity. However, with the use of opioids, patients effectively manage their pain, therefore, gaining their ability to engage in their daily activities. Opioids play an essential role in the effective treatment of chronic pain. Primarily, opioids inhibit the nerve receptors, therefore, allowing the patients their regular activity despite suffering from chronic pain (Tsui et al., 2010). The medical benefits of opioids mainly relate to relieving pain. In the late 1990s, the American pharmaceutical industry launched an aggressive market campaign for opioids as effective pain-management medication options. The introduction of painkillers in the US, however, traces back to the 1980s thought the production was relatively low (Tsui et al., 2010). The target market at the inception of the drugs mainly included chronic pain patients such as fatal accident survivors and veterans recovering from war injuries. It also intentionally targeted minority groups suffering from pain-related conditions, especially factory workers (Durand et al., 2019). Opioids are prescribed as pain relievers for both chronic pain and severe normal pain. According to clinical research, practitioners mainly issue a prescription to help patients manage severe pain that affects their life. In essence, it is an intervention treatment plan that acts as an agent to help severe and fatal survivors of accidents in the recovery process. However, the use of prescription drugs must ensure that they do not abuse them to prevent risking addiction and dependence to function. 

Side Effects of Opioid use 

The use of opioids analgesics for over long periods exposes the patients to various side effects. According to NCPI, side effects of opioids use are prevalent in cases where the users have previously engaged in such practices amounting to abuse. First, opioids are highly addictive. Research studies in the use of opioids in the 1990s and the early 2000s when the opioids crisis emerged observed that opioids users develop a high level of dependency that affects their ability to achieve maximum standard functioning capacity (Del Vecchio, Spahn, & Stein, 2017). In retrospect, opioids use affects the body leading to addiction and very severe withdrawal symptoms when the user stops using. According to Granerud & Toftn (2015), the uncontrolled use of opioids leads to dependency. While addiction may be easily treated, dependency affects normal bodily functions, therefore, leading to acute failure of critical body organs if the patient is denied access to opioids. Research also shows that long term use of opioids in chronic pain management causes huge psychological issues on the patient. A study conducted to assess the psychological impact of opioids uses indicated that they lead to a myriad of problems, including depression, mood disorders, and anxiety. In rare cases, patients exhibit hallucinations and mental health issues. 

Reasons why Opioids are being abused 

Then debate on opioids abuse suggests the existence of a link between opioid abuse and prescription patterns, aggressive market campaigns, reduced regulation, financial constraints, and financial greed by pharmaceutical companies. The causal agents are, therefore, in broad economic, psychological, and prescription-related (Hollingsworth, Ruhm, & Simon, 2017). First, pharmaceutical companies sell opioids on massive scale motivated by financial gain. Consequently, this leads to increased access leading to high abuse rates. Secondly, a lot of opioids users turn to illegal opioid-containing substances when they cannot gain access to medically prescribed opioids. Thus, this leads to the increased potency of the medication in the body leading to abuse. 

In the views of Dr. James, a rapid increase in the prescription of opioids by many doctors is responsible for the influx of opioids abuse. In the late 1990s, the FDA approval for the use of Oxycontin triggered a massive adoption of opioid-based prescription medication in the American mainstream health-care system (Prekupec, Mansky, & Baumann, 2017). Later in 1998, FDA approved fentanyl, therefore, flooding the market with opioids. The new increase in opioids led to doctors prescribing opioids to patients without essential information on its potential harm. The results were evident in the early 2000s when the opioids crisis was declared a national disaster. Over the years, the opioid crisis has culminated in massive overdose death cases. 

Causes of Opioid-Related Deaths 

Opioids-related deaths have been on a rapid increase since the early 200s. Statistical data from the National Institute of Drug Abuse show that between 1999 and 2010, the rate of overdose deaths increased by a rate of 400 % (Vadivelu, Kodumudi, Sramcik & Kaye, 2018). Mostly, the results point out that the calamity of the matter is slowly the result of an influx of addicts using illegal opioids. The majority of the cases of opioid overdose deaths indicate that they are strictly related to the use of illegal substances (Rudd, Aleshire, Zibbell & Gladden, 2016). The at-risk individuals addicted to opioids regularly use other forms of drug substances, therefore, leading to susceptibility mistakes during administration. Other causes include the sharing of needles, thus increasing their risk of contracting related diseases such as HIV and other blood transmitted diseases leading to their deaths. 

P revent ion of the Opioid Crisis in the United States 

Prevention interventions by the government require strict control by the government. To begin with, the government should disallow all forms of unprescribed over the counter sale of opioids. Such interventions will play an essential role in reducing accessibility to opioids. In the long run, the government should consider the use of alternative pain management strategies to replace opioids (Brown, Raeford &Sloan, 2017). Eventually, they should completely ban the use of opioids for all medical purposes. Also, public awareness programs should be launched in high-risk areas to educate users on the harm of opioids. In sum, an education and regulatory approach is an effective strategy to control opioids use. However, the government needs to consider permanent solutions to manage the opioid crisis. 

Solutions for the Opioid Crisis 

Possible intervention solutions include the adoption of alternative pain therapy management strategies. These strategies will help to control the over-dependence of opioids for pain management effectively. Other plans include the limitation of carefree opioids prescriptions by doctors. A strict control and assessment program should be integrated into the mainstream health care system. The introduction of opioids addiction and rehabilitation programs will play an essential role in the fight against. Rehabilitation potentially lowers the opioid addiction levels by half. 

Conclusion 

The Opioid Crisis in The United States has become vastly out of control. People are dying from opioid overdoses every day throughout our country. The United States Government needs to reconsider its current approach to prescription Opioids. The pharmaceutical companies that are making these opioids need to face judgment for the lives that have been lost to their products. As a citizen of the United States, we need to work with our state representatives to ban Opioid use throughout our country. The country needs to work together to support people addicted to Opioids. When opioids are banned from prescription use, the likelihood of people becoming addicted to this drug will go down. 

References 

Brown Jr, Raeford E., and Paul A. Sloan. "The opioid crisis in the United States: chronic pain physicians are the answer, not the cause." (2017): 1432-1434. 

Del Vecchio, G., Spahn, V., & Stein, C. (2017). Novel Opioid Analgesics and Side Effects.  ACS Chemical Neuroscience ,  8 (8), 1638-1640. doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.7b00195 

Durand, Z., Nechuta, S., Krishnaswami, S., Hurwitz, E. L., & McPheeters, M. (2019). Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated With Long-term Opioid Use After Injury Among Previously Opioid-Free Workers.  JAMA Network Open ,  2 (7), e197222. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.7222 

Granerud, A., & Toft, H. (2015). Opioid dependency rehabilitation with the opioid maintenance treatment programme - a qualitative study from the clients’ perspective.  Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy ,  10 (1). doi:10.1186/s13011-015-0031-4 

Hollingsworth, A., Ruhm, C. J., & Simon, K. (2017). Macroeconomic conditions and opioid abuse.  Journal of Health Economics ,  56 , 222-233. doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.07.009 

Prekupec, M. P., Mansky, P. A., & Baumann, M. H. (2017). Misuse of Novel Synthetic Opioids.  Journal of Addiction Medicine ,  11 (4), 256-265. doi:10.1097/adm.0000000000000324 

Rudd, R. A., Aleshire, N., Zibbell, J. E., & Matthew Gladden, R. (2016). Increases in drug and opioid overdose deaths—United States, 2000–2014. American Journal of Transplantation, 16(4), 1323-1327. 

Tsui, J. I., Herman, D. S., Kettavong, M., Alford, D., Anderson, B. J., & Stein, M. D. (2010). Physician introduction to opioids for pain among patients with opioid dependence and depressive symptoms.  Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment ,  39 (4), 378-383. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2010.06.012 

Vadivelu, N., Kai, A. M., Kodumudi, V., Sramcik, J., & Kaye, A. D. (2018). The opioid crisis: a comprehensive overview. Current pain and headache reports, 22(3), 16.