Taking a Look at Opiate Abuse

Introduction

Many people will assume prescription drugs are safe, since a doctor’s credo is to first do no harm. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control, painkiller deaths are up 400% and now outnumber automobile fatalities. Recreational opiate use has been around since recording history, indiscriminately claiming lives such as beloved 1800’s author Charles Dickens and the king of pop, Michael Jackson. Due to opiate’s effectiveness in pain management therapies, the drug isn’t going away any time soon. Doctors face the difficult quandary of balancing pain relief and dependence, causing opiate addiction and its catastrophic consequences.

A History of Opiates

Derived from a seemingly benign red poppy flower, opiates first cultivated in 3400 B.C. Morphine was isolated from the plant around 1805 and physicians discovered its therapeutic effects. Around the same time, writers start documenting recreational use, believing it was non-addictive. In 1827, the drug company Merck begins manufacturing morphine for widespread use. New Englanders introduced roughly 25,000 pounds of opium to the United States in 1840. Perdue Pharma began manufacturing and distributing opiates in the United States and by 2001; it was most widely used narcotic in the country. Currently, the most frequently used opiates include codeine, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, and fentanyl. These drugs are mostly prescribed for acute emergency department pain like broken bones or long term pain in cancer patients. Opiates the longest continuously used class of medications and aren’t going away any time soon.

Where are they coming from?

As the opiate epidemic grows, determining the origin of the pills is a key step in raising prevention awareness. According...

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...termine the best way to help a patient.

Conclusion

Pain control is the right of every patient and it’s the prescribing doctor’s responsibility to balance pain relief with addiction awareness. Since opiates are in fact so effective in treating chronic pain, sometimes they are the necessary and compassionate choice. Due to the legality of prescription opiates and the patient’s underlying illness, it is often hard to identify abuse. It is especially critical for doctors to disclose dangers to parents, since young adults are the most prone to addiction. This is a social problem that will continue to escalate until more effective measures are in place to identify risk factors. It’s imperative to speak up if a problem is suspected. Become educated on addiction symptoms and seek treatment before a legal drug prescription becomes a heroin addiction or worse.