The opioid epidemic is the extensive use of opioid drugs, prescribed by medical physicians or obtained illegally. The crisis developed towards the end of the 20 th century and led to a tremendous rise in opioid use over the past few years. Approximately 70000 drug overdose deaths were reported in the United States 2018 (Castro, 2018). According to Campos-Outcalt (2016), opioids are a wide variety of addictive, reliable, and cheap prescription drugs. The drugs are popularly used after medical surgery, along with fentanyl, and potent synthetic opioid. In spite of addiction risks, these drugs, along with heroin, are widely used for recreational purposes. The opioid crisis was termed as an American problem due to the high rate of prescription use. The U.S. alone has a rate of 40% higher than other developed countries, making it the worst medical epidemic in the history of America ( Pergolizzi, Raffa, & LeQuang, 2016) . The abuse of opiods is correlated to gun violence and car crashes. The U.S. government has started a chase for medical practitioners prescribing these drugs. This paper focuses on the possible pros and cons of opioid abuse and treatment.
In 2015, the number of opioid addicts, whether legal or illegal increased recording 0.9 million men and 1.2 females addicts (Sederer & Marino, 2018). Most of them are young whites, and from the rural population. This epidemic has affected the cultural, moral, and social resistance to alternative medications. President Obama led a crackdown on the epidemic in 2011. He authorized the funding of treatment and research on an opioid in 2016. The U.S. president declared the opioid epidemic as a “national emergency.” He demanded that the mail carriers should not permit the shipping of fentanyl, which is a dangerous opioid. The CDC also declared the urgent need for action on the crisis. The states soon proclaimed the need to combat the epidemic as a state of emergency and took measures to end it. The FDA cited the epidemic as its 'biggest crisis' in July 2017.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Causes
The opioid epidemic started with an over-prescription in the late 90s. The opioids became the highest prescribed medication class in the American states. These drugs initially meant for post-surgery, is among the leading cause of opioid use. Approximately 6% of the people kept using opioids after prescriptions. People who use opioids longer than prescribed by doctors, whether to relieve pain or to create the euphoria can develop an opioid addiction. They become tolerant, leading to dependence to suppress withdrawal symptoms. Researchers have revealed the sincere desire to find a prescription for any problem, even if it required a change in lifestyle like diet improvement, exercise, and reducing stress (Sederer & Marino, 2018). Opioids are cheap compared to therapy which is relatively expensive and might not be affordable as an alternative intervention.
Chronic pain affected approximately a third of the population during the late 90s in the U.S. The government and drug companies pushed an expansion of prescription opioid use. This approach increased the already existing rate of opioid prescription by physicians. In 2011, the number of orders had tripled, and by 2016 about 290 million annual prescriptions were opioid drugs.The increase in opioid prescriptions also led to substance abuse admission and a rise in related deaths. This shows how the legal orders of painkillers infiltrate the market illegally, causing addiction, misuse, and, eventually, destruction.
The opioid prescription rate has declined gradually since 2012, but the figure remains high. In 2017 approximately 60 in 100 people in the U.S. had opioid prescriptions. A survey in 2013 indicated that over 70% of users obtained opioids from the same doctor, friends, or relatives, who bought them from a physician. Despite the aggressiveness, opioid prescription played a significant role in spreading the crisis. Prescription reforms, which lead to the decline of opioid prescription supply, forced the opioid addicts to turn to illegal drugs such as heroin and illicit fentanyl.
Public Opinion on Opioid Abuse Treatment
The impact of opioid abuse has tremendously infiltrated the U.S. population. Recently, 30% of the respondents of a public opinion feel that family troubles were a significant contribution to the crisis. Nearly 50% of them thought that heroin use was a serious problem, whereas 18% reported it as a crisis. Similar findings have been published on the use of prescription opioids (Cook & Worcman, 2019) . Most of the public opinion polls found the prescription abuse epidemic to be a significant national problem. Over 50% of the American population knows someone with an opioid addiction problem (Sederer & Marino, 2018).
Public opinion polls have made a comparison of responses from the criminal justice systems and preference for treatment. Those facing the choice to raise treatment access or imposing strict punishment and enforcement; the majority of respondents preferred increasing treatment access. In similar polls, respondents preferred treating heroin addicts to arresting them. In spite of the dedication to attend to the opioid epidemic, over 40% of respondents believe that the U.S. is heading towards the wrong direction, while 20% feel it is right way of addressing the epidemic. 40% believe that the government has failed in the fight to address the crisis. The population feel that the country has lost the direction or has failed to progress in coping with the crisis. It is essential to acknowledge the community that feels the need to expand the community-based option for treatment ( Cook & Worcman, 2019).
Community-based treatment is meant for people suffering from drug addiction and developing ways to manage their addiction in the community using methods that do not need services of custody. Community-based treatment is the most effective way of dealing with drug dependence and abuse.
Recovery housing , also known as recovery residence, is an environment run by the sober peer to support people recovering from substance addiction. Services like therapy, case management, and supporting the peers are offered to improve their functioning and eventually integrate them back to the community. An environment with stability and safety is vital for people with substance addiction who require structural care after coming out of a medical facility, such as jail and prison, for safe recovery. Recovery housing is vital for the process of healing, particularly for patients with drug disorders who require structural care ( Speed, Parekh, Coe, & Antoine, 2018) .
Pros and Cons of Addressing Opioid Abuse
Most of the opioid users became addicts while using drugs like pain relievers. The best way to curb the addiction is by reformulating the drugs to reduce abuse, but this won't be easy. Medical research stated that drugs have mixed track records. The drugs were reformulated to harden the abuse, but the properties failed and forced the users to inject the medications by sharing the needles leading to the spread of HIV. This prompted the removal of the drug from the market as requested by FDA. The OxyContin that was reformulated succeeded partially ( Cook & Worcman , 2019)
The FDA achieved a successful step towards progress. They had a public forum on discussing ways of assessing the effects of opioid drugs. The drug companies have many ways of reformulating the opioids to make them hard to grind into powder which can be snorted or dissolved for injections. They designed the drugs such that, if they are crushed, the opioids become inert, and they can no longer cause highness. The companies that spend extra time to modify the drugs to make them hard to abuse sell fewer drugs. This is an advantage to public health but a challenge to the company profits. The abuse-deterrent prescription drugs are relatively more expensive than the formulated drugs initially. This makes it undesirable for patients. As long as the original opioids are in the market, companies with the reformulated ones stand a higher chance of losing clients to their competitors.
FDA has prioritized the opioid crisis. They are advocating for opioid approval, in part basing its effects on public health effects. This will encourage pharmaceutical companies to create features that make it hard to abuse, on all opioids, and make them more effective than the current ones. If the measures were put in place, the regenerated opioids would not solve the current epidemic. Patients will continue with their addiction even by following the prescription. People can still work their ways around by taking an overdose of medicine. In other words, abuse-deterrent drugs can be improved, but despite working better with widespread use, they cannot solve the problem (Campos-Outcalt, 2016) .
Conclusion
The public needs to understand the nature of the opioid crisis. Public awareness and education are necessary for them to understand the abuse. The failure of appropriate response leads to the collapse of the need to understand the addiction. It leads to users compromising the safety of the public. The lack of progress in curbing drug abuse creates the need to generate more effective ways of approaching the opioid use crisis. The results of various public opinion polls raise the need for expanding community-based treatment to fight the addiction epidemic.
References
Campos-Outcalt, D. (2016). Opioids for chronic pain: The cdc's 12 recommendations. The Journal of Family Practice, 65 (12), 906-909.
Cook, A., & Worcman, N. (2019). Confronting the opioid epidemic: Public opinion toward the expansion of treatment services in virginia. Health & Justice, 7 (1), 1-12. doi:10.1186/s40352-019-0095-8
DePriest, A., & Miller, K. (2014). Oxycodone/naloxone: Role in chronic pain management, opioid-induced constipation, and abuse deterrence. Pain and Therapy, 3 (1), 1-15. doi:10.1007/s40122-014-0026-2
Hansen, J. (2017). Opiates for chronic pain. Pain Practice, 17 (1), 147-148. doi:10.1111/papr.12500
Pergolizzi, J., Raffa, R., & LeQuang, J. (2016). The centers for disease control and prevention opioid guidelines: Potential for unintended consequences and will they be abused? Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 41 (6), 592-593. doi:10.1111/jcpt.12444
Pergolizzi, J., Raffa, R., Zampogna, G., Breve, F., Colucci, R., Schmidt, W., & LeQuang, J. (2016). Comments and suggestions from pain specialists regarding the cdc's proposed opioid guidelines. Pain Practice, 16 (7), 794-808. doi:10.1111/papr.12475
Sederer, L., & Marino, L. (2018). Ending the opioid epidemic by changing the culture. Psychiatric Quarterly, 89 (4), 891-895. doi:10.1007/s11126-018-9589-0
Speed, T., Parekh, V., Coe, W., & Antoine, D. (2018). Comorbid chronic pain and opioid use disorder: Literature review and potential treatment innovations. International Review of Psychiatry (abingdon, England), 30 (5), 136-146. doi:10.1080/09540261.2018.1514369
