If we as people, knew about the history and trauma dealt with prescription drugs and the doctors we trust to prescribe them, would we continue to use them? Sam Quinones, the author of Dreamland, tells a remarkable story on how prescription drugs can become addictive, the consequences of it, and how the families have to deal with their loved ones addiction. He also spoke about the issues with drug trafficking and doctors/pharmacist prescribing pills can lead to addiction. The sole purpose for this book was to show how the addiction of pain killers can lead to the addiction of illicit drug and question doctors on why they continue to prescribe these medications knowing what it could lead too. Painkillers are addictive because …show more content…
When the Xalisco boys from Mexica arrived to America they knew that Heroin was the thing to sell due to addiction. They left Mexico to escape poverty, create a better life for themselves and found an easy way to make a lot of money. But when doctors prescribe pain killers, they are gaining a drug addicted client and profiting off it as well. Not to mention the amount of money the prescription drug consumers and pharmacist began to profit. The government tried to stop the abuse of prescription drugs by setting rules and regulations for lazy doctors who wanted their patients in and out their office and money hungry drug companies that were more interested in making a profit than actually helping people. This just made things worse as people began to look for a cheaper and more efficient high, which is how they turned to the streets. In my opinion, I believed Quinones wanted to show how doctors exploit consumer’s addictions and that they are just as guilty as the drug dealers who sell street drugs. Doctors prescribed pills for just about anything and even when the epidemic of abusing drugs such as OxyContin started to spread they started to use other pain killers to ‘fix the problem of …show more content…
He used statics on the deaths caused by different illicit drugs and the people who were causing the problem of drug addiction. Quinones did an excellent job on providing information to the reader on how consumers can addicted and why. He provided the information in a way that utilized the fact that the government and doctors were the blame of the addiction of drugs. But I disagree on his opinion on how to keep people away from prescription or street drugs. He claims that as a community we should create a ‘Dreamland’ for our children and push people to do better. Quinones used this book to educate people of the harmful effects of prescriptions drugs but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to listen to his opinion. People are going to continue to raise their children however they feel is best. As he has stated in his book, drug addiction doesn’t just live in poverty but upper class neighborhoods as well. He also contradicted himself stating that heroin may be a positive change that we as Americans need in order to bring out families together. A family or friend getting addicted drugs, should not be the solution we use in order to show appreciation or spend time with one another. Overall, the book opened my eyes on the medical marketing and how people suffer from the addiction to prescription drugs. The book Dreamland has giving America a wakeup
In medical school/pharmacology school, medical professionals are taught to treat severe pain with opioids. However, opioids should be prescribed with the possibility of future dependency in mind. Physicians often struggle with whether they should prescribe opioids or seek alternative methodologies. This ethical impasse has led may medical professionals to prescribe opioids out of sympathy, without regard for the possibility of addiction (Clarke). As previously stated, a way to address this is use alternative methods so that physicians will become more acquainted to not not treating pain by means of opioid
Prescription and pharmaceutical drug abuse is beginning to expand as a social issue within the United States because of the variety of drugs, their growing availability, and the social acceptance and peer pressure to uses them. Many in the workforce are suffering and failing at getting better due to the desperation driving their addiction.
...lliams wrote in The Cocaine Kids was accurate. Instead of just writing more facts and statistics about these teenagers and cocaine, he told a story. He wrote something that more individuals can read and relate too. I believe the Williams successfully brings value and importance to these drug dealers lives. Williams shows drug dealing in the inner city in a very humane way. Their lives are closed to almost all outsiders because of the fact they are involved with illegal drugs. But after reading this book it showed me that even though they live a very difficult and dangerous way of life, they are not as different to us outsiders then we think. They too, have to continuously make tough and valuable decision to live and be successful within society. These dealers are just kids who had little time to be young and are trying to survive in a violent and corrupt world.
But the fight for a better life won't stop just because you aren't ready. What we're doing is not something you decide to do when you feel like it. Whether you're ready or not, this struggle will go on.” Pg. 159. The drug issue is relevant in the world today because kids, especially teens, use it as a way to escape the reality they are living in. Some use it to have fun but others to forget of what they are living in and to relieve the “stress” they might have. Reading fiction can teach students the harm and danger of certain things, like drugs. It can show what it does and how it can affect you in the future and even though it may take away the hurt you are feeling, it will only come back when that feeling is gone.“When you win we win but when you go down you go down alone” Pg. 159. The author shows by this quote how not everyone is willing to go down when you go down, but only succeed when you do. This is relevant in the world because when you are doing good everyone want to be surrounded by you, but once you fail no one is there to help you. This relates to the thesis because it can teach students the harm drugs can cause when using them for a temporary
Before the mid 1900’s the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was formed to tax those making, importing or selling any derivative of opium or coca leaves. In the 1920s, doctors became aware of the highly addictive nature of opioids and started to avoid treating patients with them (Center, 2004). In 1924 heroin became illegal. However according to a history published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003, anesthesiologists opened "nerve block clinics" in the 1950s and 1960s to manage pain without having to resort to surgery (Meldrum, 2003). This push for treating pain without surgery was a major factor in the opioid epidemic we see today. In 2008 the overdose death rate was almost four times the rate in 1999, and the sales of prescription pain relievers in 2010 were four times higher than in 1999 (Paulozzi et al, 2011). The substance use disorder treatment admission rate is also greater than in 1999, with it having been six times higher in 2009. Chasing Heroin’s claims surrounding the fear of prescribing pain medications is accurate as you see an increase in public policies surrounding opiate use in the early 1900’s. The climbing rates of overdose deaths and the increased amount of people seeking addiction treatment suggests that the fear of prescription opiates was
Almost one hundred years ago, prescription drugs like morphine were available at almost any general store. Women carried bottles of very addictive potent opiate based pain killers in their purse. Many individuals like Edgar Allen Poe died from such addictions. Since that time through various federal, state and local laws, drugs like morphine are now prescription drugs; however, this has not stopped the addiction to opiate based pain killers. Today’s society combats an ever increasing number of very deadly addictive drugs from designer drugs to narcotics to the less potent but equally destructive alcohol and marijuana. With all of these new and old drugs going in and out of vogue with addicts, it appears that the increase of misuse and abuse is founded greater in the prescription opiate based painkillers.
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat anything from coughs to restlessness. Yet, just as quickly as it became a household staple, many began to question the innocence of the substance. While the 1906 law had inherent weaknesses, it signaled the beginning of the end for “cure-all” drugs, such as opiate-filled “soothing syrups” that were used for infants. By tracing and evaluating various reports by doctors and investigative journalists on the medical use of heroin, it is clear that the desire for this legislative measure developed from an offshoot in the medical community-- a transformation that took doctors out from behind the curtain, and brought the public into a new era of awareness.
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
The author, Gloria Ladson-Billings, discusses in her book, "The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children," how African American students perform at lower academic levels in part due to teacher approaches and attitudes. She performed a study on eight teachers of different races and backgrounds and their approaches to teaching African American students. The purpose of the study was to identify what approaches or techniques have been most successful in helping African American students to achieve academic success. She also focuses on the idea of "culturally relevant teaching" and how it can positively impact students when teachers are aware and incorporate a student's culture and backgrounds into the classroom. Throughout the book, the
Throughout life you encounter a numerous amount of obstacles. These obstacles don’t define you, how you handle them does. In the book “The Running Dream” by Wendelin Van Draanen, Jessica encounters the biggest obstacle that life could throw at her. Jessica has had to learn to adjust her life from what it was. Her life is changing and she has to decide if this accident defines who she is going to be while being surrounded by the love and comfort of her family.
The long journey on planet earth known as life has it ups and downs, growing up as a young individual in today’s world is an obvious rollercoaster. The characters of Phoebe and Theo, are two young girls who endured completely different lives in the books The Hollow Tree, and Awake and Dreaming although they did encounter some similarities throughout their stories. The two children encountered similar family complications, utilised similar coping mechanisms to escape reality, and both became more assertive over their lifespans in the novels. These two novels offer young females readers a logical view on how tough life can get, and how the readers can overcome similar complications they have in their personal lives, while doing all this generating
Generations past guide our futures. The sacrifices and triumphs of our elders shape the environment in which we are born into, how we grow, and where we are today. My great-great-grandmother was able to leave Budapest, Hungary and come to America. My great-grandmother was able to obtain an education that would not have been readily available to her in her homeland. This has allowed me to be born into a free world, where education is the norm. Likewise, in the essay "The Dreamer", Junot Diaz describes the childhood dreams of his mother to obtain an education while living in the third world, rural area of the Dominican Republic. Diaz uses the struggles of his mother
Christian organizations had a meeting with congress and made a claim that drug abusers were hazardous, wicked individuals. These groups thought that the drug use among foreign individuals like the Chinamen and corrupt Mexicans were a threat for the American born individuals. These groups convinced Congress to criminalize drugs. One-hundred years ago some drugs was legal to possess and even children could buy drugs like morphine, opium, marijuana, and cocaine. These drugs if got caught with them today could result in a life sentence it today’s society.
People who work hard enough become successful and build a good life for themselves and their family. Millions of Americans and others who admire America have believed this for generations. However, is this still true? Brandon King debates his interpretation of the American Dream in his published work, “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” During his essay, the speaker highlights how important the American Dream is to the economy and providing a distance from inequality. The speaker emphasizes his belief that the American Dream is still alive within America and that people must work hard to achieve it. When discussing the American Dream, King will agree that the idea is alive and thriving in the minds of Americans; yet, I argue that the idea is on hold within American society due to lack of upward social independence and economic mobility.
... the physical and mental health of Americans and threatening the future of the United States, which is a consensus of most Americans. The peculiarity of drugs determines that they can’t be legalized in the society like cigarette and alcohol, and the degree of dependence of drug users on drugs far surpasses that of alcohol. Therefore, it is a kind of dangerous and inadvisable choice to legalize drugs. The comparatively radical reform schemes proposed by people, who insist on legalizing drugs, can't be adopted and accepted by the government and most people either. The extreme complexity and chronicity of drug issue and how to control the spreading of drugs should still depend on the unification of the whole society’s understanding on this issue as well as the settlement of other social issues related to drugs. It definitely does more harm than good to legalize drugs.