In nearly every town and city within the United States an epidemic rages under the surface. Camouflaged by expensive restaurants and posh arts districts, it shows its ugliness through police blotters and obituaries. Opiates, they’ve been used and abused for millenia, wars have been fought over them, entire populations subjugated and now they are claiming the lives of Americans at unprecedented rates. Around 47,000 Americans die from opioid-related overdoses yearly a figure that has increased by nearly 200% in a decade. Outreach programs seek to provide clean supplies and safe places to use, civilians are trained in the administration of narcan, CBP and the DEA regularly seize millions of dollars worth of heroin and still the number of users and the death toll soars.
Interestingly, many of those that now struggle with opiates began their relationships with narcotics rather benignly. Opioid narcotic painkillers, have and continue to be the go-to for people dealing with chronic and post-surgical pain. From the research I have done, this is for good reason. They are extremely effective at relieving pain and very affordable, at least at first. Eventually, as with any controlled substance, patients begin to build a tolerance rendering their once therapeutic doses. Fortunately, some physicians are cautious about upping the prescriptions of their patients, however this is too little too late. What ensues is a cycle of addiction wherein the victim will spend whatever it takes to get stronger pain pills. Once this begins to take a considerable financial toll they will consider cheaper alternatives: heroin and fentanyl. The dilemma of the post-surgical addict is even worse. After the arbitrary date decided upon by their doctor they are left with a crippling addiction and very little in the means of keeping away withdrawals.
The only way to combat this is to fight the prescription of opiates. While I must concede that they do have a valid therapeutic role the lackadaisical attitude many prescribers have to them is appalling and must be scrutinized on a national level. While e-prescribing and DEA databases aid in decreasing the quantity of prescription pills available, they do little to stop the cruel cycle of addiction sweeping our nation.
I loved this blog! Opioid addiction is everywhere in the United States, even where you do not expect it. My grandmother’s doctor that she has gone to for years, died of an opioid overdose a few years ago. As someone who prescribes post-surgical pills and deals must monitor the strength of dosage to avoid addiction, this took our whole community by surprise but proves that it can affect anyone. My father has had two major back surgeries, my sister has had three arm surgeries, and I have had a septoplasty (I know that it a lot of surgeries lol), and we have all been prescribed post-surgical pain medicine. However, we are very aware of the possibility of building up a tolerance of this medication and having to rely on it so we have all tried to take as little as possible and substitute Advil instead. The lack of education about this growing addiction is what is really causing these problems. The doctors that prescribe these pills to our family did not give us enough of a warning or disclaimer for me to remember, so I was lucky to be educated on the topic and know to be careful.
Great post, and I agree that America’s war on drug has been largely unsuccessful – the least of which due to their failings in regard to how they seem to have built systems which make it easy to slip into addiction for serious drug use.