The Negative Effects Of Prescription Opioids By Adam Zyglis

948 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effects of opioids essay

The image Opioids by Adam Zyglis found on PoliticalCartoons.com portrays a strong message about prescription opioid deaths. The image shows a grim reaper pouring faceless people out of a prescription bottle into his mouth, symbolizing death. The prescription bottle reads RxIP opioids addicts Dr. Approved. Conveying emphasis on its importance, the prescription bottle is the only object in color. The artist is implying prescription opioids are a prescription for death that’s doctor approved. CDC Director Frieden suggests because the epidemic is “doctor-driven”, doctors play an important role and ultimately doctors can reverse it (Ryan and Karlamanga). The image, Opioids, implies doctors are responsible for the opioid overdose epidemic. Prescription Prescription opioid drug abuse doesn’t discriminate. It can affect anyone and everyone. The artist is using the image, Opioids, to bring awareness to the prescription opioid epidemic affecting people worldwide. More than 2 million people in the United States suffer from substance abuse disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers ("Prescription and Over-the-Counter Medications"). Some may view this message as unfair; not all people prescribed opioids will become addicted. However, in terms of abuse and mortality, opioids account for the greatest proportion of the prescription drug abuse Opioids are prescribed to help people; prescription opioids can be used to treat moderate-to-severe pain and are often prescribed following surgery or injury, or for health conditions such as cancer (Prescription Opioids). When taken as directed, opioids are safe and effective treatment options for relieving debilitating chronic pain (Highsmith). Doctors have screening protocol they follow before prescribing an opioid. Doctors ask patients about their past to see if any substance abuse was present, to rule out patients with a higher risk of becoming addicted to prescription opioids. Nonetheless, if the medication is used as directed, not only is your risk of addiction minimal, the odds of enjoying a better quality of life will be in your favor (Highsmith). In other words, doctors are doing their part to prevent prescription opioid drug abuse. Actually, dishonest people are the ones at

Show More
Related

  • Argumentative Essay On The Opioid Crisis

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Barbara Ehrenreich 's Nickel And Dimed

    1158 Words  | 3 Pages

    ?). Drug use and abuse has become a widespread issue within the United States. One of its most troubling aspects being the abuse of pharmaceutical and prescription drugs, painkillers raising the most concern. Drugs such as Oxycontin, Ambien, and Xanax are being prescribed by doctors and given to the public and then being misused, causing more harm than good. ADD SOURCE THAT EXPLAINS THE MANIFESTATION OF THIS. Barbara Ehrenreich, an American author and sociologist explores this very problem in her book, Nickel and Dimed. When talking about a worker’s use of medication, Ehrenreich claims that, “Unfortunately, the commercial tells us, we workers can exert the same kind of authority over our painkillers that our bosses exert over us. If Tylenol doesn’t want to work for more than four hours, you just fire its ass and switch to Aleve”(25). In other words, Ehrenreich is stating how the media is pushing drugs onto the working class and through the use of personification she illustrates how workers identify themselves with the medications they are taking. Employees will opt for the most efficient medication in order to be efficient themselves, which reduces them to a less than human kind of being for their employer’s benefit. If any of the employees fail to meet the expectations set for them, a new recruit from the company’s “pool of cheap labor” can easily replace them. Pharmaceutical and prescription drug abuse is becoming a growing concern amongst low wageworkers because of their variety, easy access, and social acceptance.

    Read More

  • Informative Speech On Opioids

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    There are drugs out there that are really dangerous, and I’m sure you know that but there is a type of drug that out there that people we trust are giving it out to people. Those people are our doctors! And they are giving out prescription opioids that are really dangerous and highly addictive.

    Read More

  • Chasing Heroin Analysis

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    The documentary states that over 27,000 deaths a year are due to overdose from heroin and other opioids. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015 prescription pain relievers account for 20,101 overdose deaths, and 12,990 overdose deaths are related to heroin (Rudd et al., 2010-2015). The documentary’s investigation gives the history of how the heroin epidemic started, with a great focus on the hospice movement. We are presented with the idea that once someone is addicted to painkillers, the difficulty in obtaining the drug over a long period of time becomes too expensive and too difficult. This often leads people to use heroin. This idea is true as a 2014 survey found that 94% of respondents who were being treated for opioid addiction said they chose to use heroin because prescription opioids were “more expensive and harder to obtain (Cicero et al., 2014).” Four in five heroin users actually started out using prescription painkillers (Johns, 2013). This correlation between heroin and prescription painkiller use supports the idea presented in the documentary that “prescription opiates are heroin prep school.”

    Read More

  • Suboxone Therapy

    1579 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

    1398 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Opioids

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    Opioids are used as pain relievers and although it does the job, there are adverse side effects. Opioids are frequently used in the medical field, allowing doctors to overprescribe their patients. The substance can be very addicting to the dosage being prescribed to the patient. Doctors are commonly prescribing opioids for patients who have mild, moderate, and severe pain. As the pain becomes more severe for the patient, the doctor is more likely to increase the dosage. The increasing dosages of the narcotics become highly addicting. Opioids should not be prescribed as pain killers, due to their highly addictive chemical composition, the detrimental effects on opioid dependent patients, the body, and on future adolescents. Frequently doctors have become carless which causes an upsurge of opioids being overprescribed.

    Read More

  • Opioids Essay

    825 Words  | 2 Pages

    Opiates are a class of drugs that are used for chronic pain. Opioids are substances that are used to relieve pain by binding opiate receptors throughout the body, and in the brain. These areas in the brain control pain and also emotions, producing a feeling of excitement or happiness. As the brain gets used to these feelings, and the body builds a tolerance to the opioids, there is a need for more opioids and then the possibility of addiction.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Dreamland By Sam Quinnoes

    788 Words  | 2 Pages

    Originally pain medications were very limited and believed to be very addictive by most doctors. Doctors would first recommend more holistic ways to treat pain such as physical therapy and meditation. However, with the development of more pain medications big pharmaceutical companies convinced hospitals and doctors that opiates were virtually non addictive when used to treat pain, but they were careful not to describe the doses in which they were non addictive so they could sell more. Once doctors began using these drugs, big pharma kept pushing for the use of opiates in more patients with less severe cases, expanding their use beyond just those suffering from terminal diseases. The opiate, OxyContin, was promoted this way with aggressive sales men stating their research showed these drug were not addictive. This lead doctors to prescribe these drugs more frequently and in higher doses. In fact, every year since 1996 the prescription rate of these drugs has

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Addiction

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 2016 Americans are turning to heroin to deal with their despair, pain and turmoil in their lives, subsequently causing an opiate epidemic. This point is further evidenced by the following statement

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues In Pain Management

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    An ethical dilemma that is currently happening in the medical field regards pain management. Doctors as well as other medical professionals are faced with this ethical decision on whether to prescribe strong pain medication to patients who claim to be experiencing pain, or to not in skepticism that the patient is lying to get opioids and other strong medications. “Opioids are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain. Continued use in addition to abuse can lead to physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms,” (Drug Free World Online). Opioids are often prescribed to patients experiencing excruciating pain, but doctors are faced with prescribing these drugs as an ethical issue because only a patient can measure the

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Opioid Abuse

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Every year, 2.6 million people in the United States suffer from opioid abuse and of that 2.6 million, 276,000 are adolescents, and this problem is only escalating. An individual’s physical and emotional health suffer as well as their personal lives as they lose employment, friends, family, and hope. Opioid addiction begins with the addictive aspects of the drug. People easily become hooked on the relieving effects of the opioids and suffer withdrawal symptoms if they stop using the drug completely because their nerve cells become accustomed to the drug and have difficulty functioning without it; yet the addiction to the drug is only one aspect to the complex problem. The stigma about opioid addiction has wide-reaching negative effects as it

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Opioids

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    It doesn’t matter if these patients will become addicted, because these doctors are so sure of it that they overprescribe just so the patients won’t come back asking for more in the near future. Due to the inconsideration and selfishness of these doctors “Prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing form of substance abuse”(Hanson). To make matters worse, a majority of these doctors aren't even warning their patients about the type of drug they are dealing with. According to the National Institute on drug abuse, opioids are a class of drugs that include the illegal drug heroin, causing them to be highly addictive(Thomas et al). Not only is it clear to see that these doctors are at fault here for even prescribing a drug they know can be as addicting as heroin, but also because they aren't doing anything to fix their mistakes, much less admit that they are at fault here. Doctors are to blame for these addiction, not the patients. Doctors are also to blame for not giving these unhealthy addictions the attention they deserve. After all, they are required by the FDA to give risk evaluations when the risks of the drug outweigh the benefits(Blake). Yet on the contrary to popular belief these doctors aren’t giving those evaluations out, if they were more deaths could

    Read More

  • Persuasive Speech Outline On Opioids

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    By the year 2000 opioid medicine containing oxycodone etc., are being abused and misused and more than doubled in 10 years’ time.

    Read More

  • The Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis

    1696 Words  | 4 Pages

    The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such. Not to mention the fact that the doctors who prescribe these opioids often tend to misuse them as well. Abusing these prescribed drugs can “destroy dreams and abort great destinies," and end the possibility of the abuser to have a positive impact in the community.

    Read More

More about The Negative Effects Of Prescription Opioids By Adam Zyglis

Open Document