Opioid Crisis

Opioid Crisis

Pain is an integral public health concern that has been neglected over the years resulting in ineffective and disparate pain management strategies by people. Lack of sufficient pain management legislation has led to dubious and risky pain relieve prescriptions; necessity is the mother of invention. Several illegal and fraudulent drugs are being distributed on the streets. Pain is a highly subjective burden on the psychological, biological, and social wellbeing of a person. Opioid is one of the main pain reliever methods that is widely abused, thus raising the alarm. It has been an epidemic that has caused most death of both youths and adults. Obama Administration played a significant part in the legislation of opioids. He outlined that addressing the opioid epidemic was a top priority in the betterment of the healthcare sector. The Obama Administration pumped $1.1 billion into the Opioid prevent and regulation program to help the affected people (WHO, 2018). However, opioid caused deaths have been on the rise, which calls for the prompt address of the epidemic and for its agenda for legislation to avert this heinous epidemic.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 275 million people globally have consumed drugs in 2016 at least once. This is 56 percent of the worldwide population comprising of people aged 15 to 64 years. Around 34 million of this number used opioids and 19 million of the used opiates. Initially, the federal government was involved in the pain policy regulation of controlled substances. Congress enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (Controlled Substances Act) in 1970 to regulate the custody, use, production management, enforcement, and the classification of various controlled substances (Jacob Gross & Debra Gordon, 2019). The CSA allowed opioid prescriptions for pain treatment. However, this led to increased cases of opioid abuse raising its restriction concern, especially in the treatment of cancer-related pain. For example, in 2012, 259 million prescriptions had been written as an opioid pain treatment.

In 2016, 27 million people experienced opioid-caused disorders. Opioid addicted people went ahead to seek illicitly manufactured heroin instead. In 2015, over 450,000 people died on account of opioids. In 2018, 218,000 deaths were linked to opioid prescriptions translating to 130 death per day (WHO, 2018). Bewilderingly, effective treatments of opioid addiction are available, but, 10 percent of the affected use them. For example, naloxone medication (very inexpensive) treat entirely opioid abuse and can prevent death. Therefore, statistically, opioid is an existing deadly epidemic that needs much attention to help reduce its mortality rate. The significant shift in policy within the federal and state level resulted in less restrictive regulation on opioid prescriptions. This led to the neglect of initiatives on the pain treatment methods increasing the illegal access and use of opioids. However, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) works on carrying out evidence-based research and recommendation that will help in the regulation of policies and for the good of the public health.

Pain is both a mentally, physically, and psychologically deteriorating experience on any human being. Opioid addiction causes are complex, a combination of environmental, lifestyle, and even genetic factors. In most cases, the endogenous opioid system in the body may trigger addictive behavior on opioid. Illegitimate prescriptions have also played a more significant effect on addiction to opioid. This is when the drug lands in the wrong hands leading to overdose and abuse.  Another cause is misuse by taking opioid medicines contrary to the provider’s prescription. Other addicts use them as drugs to get high. However, the bottom-line reason for opioid abuse is its recommendation for acute pain treatment.

Opioid contains opium poppy substances. For example, heroin, morphine, tramadol, and other hard substances characterized by harmful effects on the body. It causes substance dependence and addiction and impaired control over its use. This is an adverse consequence that gives the user a higher affinity for opioids hence causing addiction. Opioid overdose affects the part of the brain in charge of the respiratory system. Therefore, opioid overdose causes respiratory depression, which eventually leads to death. Opioid addiction or overdose interferes with the user’s social life; one may try to change friends and alienate themselves from other people. It negatively turns around someone’s life. In some extreme cases, one may lose speech due to the damage of the brain function.

References

Gross, J., & Gordon, D. B. (2019). The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Current US Policy to Address Pain. American Journal of Public Health, 109(1), 66–72. doi: 10.2105/ajph.2018.304746

World Health Organization. (2018, August 21). Information sheet on opioid overdose. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/.