It is not a secret that the number of people diagnosed with mental diseases ranging from ADHD all the way to schizophrenia has drastically increased with each passing year. In addition, the number of patients that doctors encourage to consume prescription drugs is increasing with time. The controversy behind these findings is whether it is the ability to diagnose patients inflicted with actual problems or an increase in over diagnoses that is leading to these rises in statistics. My attention was drawn to this problem after viewing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance of their new song “Kevin” on the American Music Awards this past month. The song is a commentary of the “war on prescription drugs” that our generation is dealing with in America. Macklemore shows his feelings towards the issue through his powerful lyrics, “Doctor, please, give me a dose of the American Dream. Put down the pen and look in my eyes, We’re in the waiting room and something ain’t right. All this is on you, we’re over prescribed”. Here is a link to the rest of the lyrics.

Is doctors over prescribing medication leading to widespread addiction? According to Science Daily, “Since 1997, the number of Americans seeking treatment for addiction to painkillers increased by 900%”. The probability that the number of people getting injured increased dramatically enough to produce that large of a percentage is highly unlikely; therefore, one must question why doctors are so much more likely to prescribe these medications than they previously were. Doctors face external pressures from opioid manufacturers to suggest long term prescription for the chronic pain that their patients faced. According to the government’s Drug Abuse website, “the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain relievers has soared in the United States, more than quadrupling since 1999”. This website points out that the widespread environmental access to these types of prescriptions occurs because of “drastic increases in the number of prescriptions written and dispensed, greater social acceptability for using medications for different purposes, and aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies”. Opioids are usually prescribed for moderate to severe pain and act by attaching to specific proteins called opioid receptors located on nerve cells. The affects of this include reduced sensation of pain and a rise in sense of well-being, along with an increase in drowsiness, mental confusion, and nausea. When the drug is taken in ways other then prescribed, which unfortunately happens frequently, the euphoric effects are increased and addiction is bound to occur.

Another large problem is that patients are sometimes compelled to give their medication to family or friends whom they feel would benefit from it. High school students may be tempted to steal easily accessible prescription drugs from family medicine cabinets after experiencing pressure from their contemporaries or pop culture. Finally, patients in need of the drug may attempt selling the drug to those who are addicted, thus perpetuating a criminal drug market. The Drug Abuse website tells us that “in 2012, over five percent of the U.S. population aged 12 years or older used opioid pain relievers non-medically”. This statistic gives evidence to all of the claims previously stated.

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The Worst Pills website explains many research studies performed that show scenarios where doctors prescribe medication despite the potential of alternative methods being used. One experiment presented doctors with part of a clinical scenario and then encouraged them to find out more about the source of the problem by asking the patients additional questions. Despite being told to do this, 65% of doctors recommended that a patient complaining of insomnia be treated with sleeping pills before asking questions and failed to realize underlying reasons why patients truly had insomnia. This small example is much too common in the American medical industry.

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In conclusion, there is a lot of corruption and controversy in the pharmaceutical industry that negatively affects an increasing number of American Citizens. In 2011, the United States Government released a paper entitled, “Epidemic: Responding to America’s Prescription Drug Abuse Crises” which can be found through this link. This topic is very prevalent and new information is being researched daily in an attempt to fight this so called epidemic.

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