Opioid Crisis: 40,000 Deaths and Counting - Essay Sample

Introduction

The opioid crisis is the extensive usage of opioid drugs, whether from illegal sources or medical prescriptions. The crisis originated in the united states in the early 1990s, whereby opioids drugs were specifically used/ prescribed for pain management (Cicero et al., 2014). As a result of this, there was a steady increase in opioids usage in subsequent years. Notably, between the years 1999 to 2016, an average of 40 000 people have died as a result of over usage of the drug (Cicero et al., 2014). In the year 2017, there was a record of 70, 300 drug overdose deaths within the United States (Cicero et al., 2014). Among the numbers, a total of 47500 were as a result of an opioid.

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Of late, approximately 120 people die every single day in the United States as a result of opioid-related drug over-usage (Wilkerson et al., 2016). Moreover, those individuals who are addicted to opioids, be it illegal or legal, are young, whites as well as females. According to Wilkerson et al. (2016), averages of 1.3 million women are addicted as compared to one million men in 2016. Also, the rural population of the states has been the hardest hit by the addiction, as well as the number of deaths toll. Since the year 2006, teen abuse of opioids drugs has become rampant, and it's increasing at an alarming rate (Wilkerson et al., 2016). As a result, the crisis has led to a lot of changes in social, moral as well as cultural resistance to certain street drug substitutes like heroin (Cicero et al., 2014).

Opioid use is stated to have impacted all ages, ethnicities, sexes, and socioeconomic backgrounds of the Americans. This is mostly among the citizens who live in rural settings (Bedard et al., 2017). According to the survey in the Annuals of Internal Medicine, almost one-third of the United States adults are currently addicted to the use of opioids (Bedard et al., 2017). The united states of America have been stated to have led the global in the use of the opioids with a whooping of 80 percent in the consumption rate of all the world's opioids (Bedard et al., 2017). As a result of this huge percent, drug overdose has since become the number one cause of deaths specifically for young Americans than fifty years (Wilkerson et al., 2016). Hence, it has proven to be a bigger challenge to the growing population aged 15 to 24 years of age.

According to Wilkerson et al. (2016), by the years 2016, the total number of deaths associated with opioid use was more than from pneumonia, influenza, accidents, and kidney disorders. Due to this, the opioid drug crisis has been described as one of the worst drug crises in the history of the United States, claiming more deaths yearly more than gun or car crashes, thus rendering a number of children orphans (Wilkerson et al., 2016). Due to the ever-increasing number of addictions as well as death rates, the American government has begun hunting doctors and pharmacists who are associated with overprescribing of opioid drugs. For instance, in the year 2016, then-President Barrack Obama struck a deal that authorized a sum of millions of dollars specifically for funding opioid research and treatment (Wilkerson et al., 2016). In 2017, President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis as a national emergency, thus citing the crisis as the Food and Drug Administration's worst crisis. In 2019, he directed the United States mail carries to effectively block the shipments of most of the dangerous as well as powerful Fentanyl, opioid from being shipped into the country (Cicero et al., 2014).

Opioid Types and Prescriptions

The opioid crisis comprises of both nonprescription as well as prescriptions of use of opioid drugs (Boscarino et al., 2010). Notably, the prescriptions of opioids include semi-synthetic and natural opioids, for instance, morphine and codeine. Also, there are synthetic opioids which comprise of Fentanyl, tramadol, and methadone (Boscarino et al., 2010). A number of synthetic agents like Fentanyl are being manufactured and illegally supplied to the citizens/users. Due to the recent increase in the availability of the nonprescribed and legally obtained opioids, there has been a tremendous increase specifically in misuse as well as the number of deaths (Boscarino et al., 2010). Notably, certain types of opioids have been available for around a century, thus promoting the misuse of these drugs.

Opioids Addiction

Of late opioids are easily available today in a number of states due to the intense marketing campaign specifically by the pharmaceutical corporations (Scherrer et al., 2014). According to the report carried out by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2014, averagely, two million American citizens were heavily dependent on opioids (Boscarino et al., 2010). Notably, opioid addiction is not associated with discrimination among the ethnicities, occupations, and socioeconomic statuses. Thus, one individual is addicted; the user automatically finds it hard to fight as well as overcome the habit (Scherrer et al., 2014). Also, opioids addiction is associated with the creation of artificial endorphins, specifically in the user's brains, thus amplifying euphoria and positive feelings. As a result of the user being dependent on the drug, he/she becomes depressed and sick for instances; they are unable to use these narcotics. Consequently, they experience uncontrollable cravings, which can only be relieved through maximizing the use of opioids (Scherrer et al., 2014). Moreover, personal finances, as well as relationships, do get affected since patients will do whatever it takes so as to acquire a good number of these drugs.

In a nutshell, there are a lot of problems that are specifically related to opiate withdrawals. Thus, a number of these problems comprises of rhinorrhea, vomiting, nausea, anxiety, piloerection, abdominal pain, tachycardia, diarrhea, lacrimation, mydriasis, and hypertension (Boscarino et al., 2010). Notably, there are a number of drugs such as buprenorphine, extended-release naltrexone, and methadone, which are used to help alleviate cravings as well as symptoms of withdrawals amongst the users (Boscarino et al., 2010). With an average of one thousand patients treated daily for the misuse and overdose of opioids, its significant for the medical community to address this crisis once and for all (Scherrer et al., 2014).

The Opioid Crisis in the United States

First Crisis

The opioid crisis in the United States of America has occurred in three waves. The first wave was reported to have occurred in the year 1991. This was as a result of the number of deaths involving opioids started to rise due to an increase in the prescription of opioids as well as opioids combinations medications specifically for the treatment of pain (Olfson et al., 2018). Moreover, the sharp increase in opioids prescriptions was majorly due to the reassurance given by the medical societies as well as pharmaceuticals (Olfson et al., 2018). These two organizations claimed that the risks of addiction to prescription opioids were very minimal. Notably, at this time, organizations such as pharmaceuticals companies started marketing the use of opioids, especially in patients with non-cancer related pain, without proper backup from research and survey in relation to the associated risks and benefits in the affected patients (Olfson et al., 2018). By the year 1999, a whopping 85 percent of the opioid users were using them for cancer unrelated pains.

Second Crisis

The second wave of the opioid crisis begun around the year 2010, whereby there was a rapid increase in the number of deaths as a result of heroin abuse (Olfson et al., 2018). The use of heroin took a sharp increase in both gender, the socioeconomic groups, and age brackets due to the fact that the prescription of opioids drugs was very hard to obtain; thus, the focus shifted to heroin as a readily available drug (Olfson et al., 2018). Due to this, there was a massive increase in the percentage of heroin-related misuse by a whopping 286 percent from the year 2002 to 2013 (Park et al., 2015). Unfortunately, 80 percent of the heroin users confessed to the misuse of opioids prescriptions prior to using heroin.

Third Crisis

According to Park et al. (2015), the third wave of the opioid crisis started in the year 2013. The sharpest increase in the number of deaths associated with synthetic opioids like Fentanyl was witnessed. Moreover, the increase in drug-related deaths was typically witnessed in the year 2016, whereby more than 20,000 death cases were reported specifically from Fentanyl (Park et al., 2015). Notably, as a result of the increase in death related to Fentanyl, it has since been associated with illicitly manufactured Fentanyl, which is mostly used to substitute or adulterate other drugs of abuse (Park et al., 2015).

Commons Themes of the Various Crisis Across the Identified TimeSpan (1991- 2013)

A number of people in the United States have died as a result of drug-related overdose; for instance, the misuse of opioids since the first crisis in the year 1991. By the years 2017, the total number of deaths associated with opioid use was more than from HIV or AIDS-related illness, pneumonia, influenza, accidents, and kidney disorders (Morris & Mir, 2015). As a result of this, the opioid drug crisis has been described as one of the worst drug crises in the entire history of the United States, claiming more deaths yearly more than gun or car crashes, thus rendering a number of children orphans (Morris & Mir, 2015). In the United States of America, the country which has been identified as the most affected, the opioid crisis rose through a number of themes.

For instance, in the first wave of the opioid epidemic, the crisis was a result of poor prescriptions of opioid drugs by the pharmacists and doctors, distribution of illegal and illicit opioids drugs for consumptions, and inadequate training by medical personnel (Morris & Mir, 2015). However, during the second wave of the opioid epidemic in 2010, the crisis was a result of a lack of information by the patients as well as medical fraternities on how to prescribe the drugs, for instance, on the consumption of heroin (Morris & Mir, 2015). Also, the second crisis was associated with the characteristics of the United States healthcare system, culture, and socio-economic trends and the use of marketing strategies by the pharmaceutical manufacturers to market on the use of certain opioids that were not legal for consumption (Morris & Mir, 2015).

On the third wave of the opioid epidemic, the crisis was as a result of government failure to enforce proper laws on the prescription of opioids similar to other medications (Wilkerson et al., 2016). Also, the inability of the government through the ministry of health to find an alternative to pain management medicines is a factor that eventually led to the third epidemic. Lastly, the presence of government failure to ban the importation of illegal and illicit opioids drugs from being transported into the country led to the third opioid crisis (Wilkerson et al., 2016).

Lessons Learned From the Crisis

There are a number of lessons that can be drawn from the three opioid crises in the United States of America. For instance,

First Crisis

In this first wave of the opioid crisis, a number of lessons can be drawn from it. For example, doctors and pharmacists can be witnessed to lack proper training in medical institutions. Many physicians lack vital information on the prescription of pain treatment, and the government has not encouraged these experts to undergo proper t...