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Thesis statement on the opioid crisis
Thesis for opioid crisis
Thesis statement on the opioid crisis
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All over the world people just like us are struggling with an opioid addiction. It has gotten so bad that it has turned into an epidemic. In 2016 a total of 116 people died every day from an opioid related drug overdose and 11.5 people miss uses prescription opioids. President trump has now made this epidemic a public health emergency or also known as a national emergency. Everyone all over the world need to step up and help defeat this opioid epidemic. This opioid epidemic is not only affecting men and woman all over the world it is affecting innocent babies. Pregnant woman are using and abusing opioids causing their babies to be born withdrawing from opioids. Babies withdrawing from opioids is a very serious matter and this condition is
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.”
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.
Every twenty-five minutes a baby is born suffering from opioid withdrawal called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (“National Institute on Drug Abuse”). Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) - is a group of problems like seizures, vomiting, and diarrhea that a newborn faces when they have been exposed to addictive opiate drugs while in the mother’s womb (“Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome”). In 2012, around 21,732 babies were born with NAS (“National Institute on Drug Abuse”). Mothers who give birth to babies suffering from NAS should be penalized; the United States has laws protecting all children’s lives from any form of abuse, NAS is a form of child abuse and parents should lose all rights to their children.
By the year 2000 opioid medicine containing oxycodone etc., are being abused and misused and more than doubled in 10 years’ time.
Opioid’s chemical composition consist of many highly addictive substances which cause the human body to become quickly tolerant. Many opioid users become addictive to the substance because the doctors have been over prescribing. “In the United States, there were 14,800 annual prescribed opioid (PO) deaths in 2008” with the US having less restrictions (Fischer, Benedikt, et al 178). The United States have implemented more regulations so that “high levels of PO-related harms been associated with highly potent oxycodone formulas” will decrease (Fischer, Benedikt, et al 178). With the regulations, it does not change the fact that opioids are is destructive. The regulations assistance by lessening the probability of patients becoming addictive to opioid. There are numerous generations that are effected and harmed by the detrimental effects of opioids on opioid-dependent patients.
In 2016, 2,816 Canadians died from opioid-related causes, and that number will likely surpass 3,000 in 2017. People across the nation are seeing their loved ones die for reasons that could have been avoided.
In the United States, opioid addiction rates have majorly increased . Between 2000-2015 more than half a million individuals have died from Opioid overdose, and nearly 5 million people have an opioid dependence which has become a serious problem. The Center for Disease control reports that there are 91 deaths daily due to opioid abuse. Taking opioids for long periods of time and in
On the typical day, over 90 people will die at the hand of opioid abuse in America alone (National). In fact, as of 2014, nearly 2 million Americans were dependent and abusing opioids. The Opioid Crisis has affected America and its citizens in various ways, including health policy, health care, and the life in populous areas. Due to the mass dependence and mortality, the crisis has become an issue that must be resolved in all aspects.
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 suffers 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 of the complex problem. The stigma about opioid addiction has wide-reaching negative effects as it discourages people with opioid abuse problems from reaching out.
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
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.
More than ninety people a day in America overdose on opioids. People have become so dependent on them and the high they give people. Opioids are a class of drugs that include illegal heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and pain relievers. Around eleven and half million Americans age twelve and up have reported misusing prescription drugs. That is a sad fact, Americans are dying and leaving behind innocent children due to their addiction.
Canada is facing an opioid epidemic. The year 2016 brought a flood of daily headlines, articles, reports, statistics, and news coverage all across the country on the drug crisis. Unfortunately, 2017 proved to be just as devastating. Overdoses, rising hospital intakes, and lost lives filled every news station and newspaper across Canada. Avoiding the news surrounding Canada’s opioid epidemic seems nearly impossible today as the issue continues to grow.
Opioid Epidemic Is there an opioid epidemic? Opiods are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain. Opioids block pain, slows breathing and has a general calming and anti-depressing effect. If someone continues to use and abuse this medicine, it can cause withdrawl symptoms and the feeling to “need it”. People will use opioids when perscribed, but also nonperscribed.
Many people think that drug use during pregnancy is not a big problem, but it is. For many moms it starts with a painkiller. Someone offers a person a painkiller, their body likes it, so they go to their doctor and say their back hurts. They get their painkiller and then it gets too expensive, so they switch to heroin because it is very cheap. Finally they try to stop but they can not.