History and Preventive Strategy of Opioid Addiction Epidemic

History and Preventive Strategy of Opioid Addiction Epidemic

There is a myriad of contributing factors to the opioid epidemic, which poses a challenge in solving the healthcare issue. In the United States, for example, President Trump’s administration acknowledged the devastating impact of opioid use. Irrespective of the reduction of opioid prescription, there was an increased alarming mortality rate due to opioid overdose. As per 2016, approximately 64000 lives were claimed as a result of a drug overdose and over 42000 of such deaths were associated with opioid use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Subsequently, in October 2017, Trump’s government declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency (Ending America’s Opioid Crisis, n.d.).

History of Opioid Epidemic addiction

The history of the opioid epidemic dates back in the late 18^th century when opioids became available in the United States. It was until the 1860s when they got utilized in the treatment of soldiers participating in the civil war. As a result, most of them got addicted to opioids. During the late 1800s, there was a rapid increase in opioid addiction due to the fast over-the-counter availability, as facilitated by the Bayer brands selling of heroin for pain, cough and treating morphine addiction. After that, the early 1900s saw a heightened morphine use for pain relieve (Moghe, 2016). Subsequently, in 1910, reports indicated that a growing population of American citizens inhaled opioids after crushing them for pleasure and leisure. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotic Act got passed, which allowed opioid availability only through prescription in a bid to reduce their reactional use in the streets. Since then, they were only prescribed to patients dying for acute pain instead of for those with chronic pain.

Increased stigmatization of opioid addiction compelled the physicians to abandon the practice of prescribing them and instead used them as nerve-blocking agents during surgeries. The American Pain Society advocated for nonaddictive opioid use to relief pain among cancer patients between 1970 and the 1990s (Yoder & Coroner, 2019). The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1986, designed a pain Monograph for cancer and post-operative pain management (WHO, 1996). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Percocet and Vicodin in the late 1970s and 1986. In the 1990s, the Purdue Pharmaceuticals spent almost $250million in marketing Oxycontin, a narcotic agonist-analgesic of opiate receptors, which was presumed to have a less likelihood of being abused, but the results were contrary. It was between this period, the 1980s, that the popularity to start using opioids as a pain reliever for chronic illnesses began. According to Hwang, Chang & Alexander, Oxycodone prescription and use increased in almost fourfold from the early 2000s to 2008 (2015). In 2013, over 27000 newborn babies were declared having Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Today, there are 142 deaths due to opioid overdose in the U.S. (Moghe, 2016).

Planning a preventive strategy as a Public Health Professional to curb the epidemic of opioid addiction

In response to the opioid epidemic, every healthcare professional has a critical role to play in reducing the alarming mortality rates associated with opioid addiction. In that perspective, preventive strategies ought to get outlined while finding out the ideal relief of pain which remains the duty of healthcare practitioners and a right for all (International Association for the Study of Pain, n.d.). In my capacity as a healthcare provider, I would suggest two strategies to reduce the epidemic of opioid addiction.

Firstly, assertive education programs to the public are necessary. Such a strategy is relevant in educating societies of the dangers of the addictive opioid drugs for pain management and pleasure. The step also enlightens the public of the adverse effects of opioid abuse. Investing in continuing physician education quarterly to all prescribers and healthcare workers and patient education sessions is critical. A report by a study done by Blendon & Benson demonstrated that a considerable percentage of the public (46%) lay blame to physicians of the inappropriate prescribing of opioids. In comparison, about 28% of them blamed the illegal drug peddlers, and about 13% blamed pharmaceutical industries of the opioid epidemic (2018).

Another preventive strategy would involve lobbying for the substation of using opioid drugs use with buprenorphine. Efforts need to get increased to make buprenorphine mandatorily available to manage chronic pain. Also, methadone should be excluded from the formulary due to its increased association with many deaths, approximately 3100 deaths annually, even though it constitutes only a per cent of the total prescribed opioids.

References

Blendon, R. J., & Benson, J. M. (2018). The public and the opioid-abuse epidemic. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(5), 407-411.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Provisional counts of drug overdose deaths as of August 6, 2017.

Ending America’s Opioid Crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/opioids/

Hwang, C. S., Chang, H. Y., & Alexander, G. C. (2015). Impact of abuse‐deterrent OxyContin on prescription opioid utilization. Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 24(2), 197-204.

International Association for the Study of Pain. (n.d.). Declaration of Montréal. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.iasp-pain.org/DeclarationofMontreal

Moghe, S. (2016, October 14). Opioids: From ‘wonder drug’ to abuse epidemic. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/opioid-addiction-history/

World Health Organization Staff, & World Health Organization. (1996). Cancer pain relief: with a guide to opioid availability. World Health Organization.

Yoder, D. K., & Coroner, M. C. (2019). OPIOID EPIDEMIC 2019.