Nora D. Volkow gave a visual representation showing that the dispensing of opioids in pharmacies has increased in recent years. Volkow is talking about how bad opioid addiction is. Opioid addiction increases the number of overdoses and more people think it's ok to take pain pills. Prescription medicine can be very helpful to people that are in pain. But too many doctors are writing prescriptions for these people and the pills are too easy to get.…
deaths that continue to grow due to the misuse of the very addictive opioid prescription…
This article talks about how to recognize signs when one is misusing a prescription drug. This article shows how we…
Perhaps the article wanted to focus on the prescriber’s side of this ethical issue but it is important to note that the pharmacist plays a crucial role. While the physician is prescribing the opioids, it is the pharmacist that often takes the heat if there is an issue with the prescription. From personal experiences, I have observed how situations can turn ugly quick when the pharmacist cannot fill an opioid prescription for whatever reason. This could be due to the insurance not paying for it because it is too early to fill or the pharmacist suspecting that the patient is a drug seeker due to multiple scripts from different providers. In a small town like Milford, the pharmacist could play a role in monitoring how much and how often a patient fills their opioid prescriptions. They could look for trends such as early refills, which could indicate the patient is either a seeker or their pain is not adequately controlled. Pharmacists could also use their knowledge of medications to assist physicians design alternative therapies for adequate pain control. This is an example of the value of altruism in which the pharmacist can establish a positive and respectful relationship with the physician in order to provide the best care for their patients (Haddad). It is unfortunate that some patients will not be able to get adequate pain control with the new restricting guidelines. As the last patient of Dr. Wergin explained, “the people who are abusing these medications are ruining it for the rest of us.”…
Today's pharmaceutical companies provide a powerful impact on the situation of a heroin epidemic in the United States because modern pharmaceutical companies have allowed production of legal, regulated prescription opiates that led to the increase of drug abuse and overdose deaths. Pharmaceutical reps receive big bonuses for pushing their products on doctors, which resulted in they get the large profit and thus forgot for a certain responsibility to their patients. How many lives have been limited by the use of painkillers? Who is responsible for the pain-pill epidemic? How many dreams are not fulfilled? What are the true reasons behind it? Those are questions that befuddle many individuals and experts. Sadly, drug overdoses now kill more…
Opiate overdose has many cumulating factors that intertwine causing an actual overdose. Many believe that the rise of opiate overdoses is due to an increase in opiate addicts primarily heroin addicts. However, research shows that the reason for overdose rate increases is due to the following factors; fear of reporting an overdose, tolerance, and polysubstance use. Usually when a person overdoses the majority of the time it is due to injecting heroin. Most of the time it is a fellow heroin addict with them that fails to seek medical attention for that person while they still can, due to the fear that they will get in trouble and face legal consequences. Therefore, they just leave the person where ever they are and take off in fear. The second risk factor increasing the chances of an opiate overdose is tolerance. This is when a person builds, over time the need to use more of the substance at one time to gain the same effect. Or the addict increases use of other drugs to compensate for the decreased effectiveness of the opiate they have such a high tolerance for. Another risk factor is polysubstance abuse; this is when a person uses more than one drug in combination with other drugs, usually at the same time. Many addicts will mix alcohol and benzodiazepines together along with the opiate which in combined acts…
The annual number of prescription painkiller overdose deaths have increased five hundred percent since 1990; but who is there to blame for this drastic increase in numbers? Doctors should be held responsible for the abuse of prescription drugs among people. At first, it seemed that doctors were not taking pain serious enough and they were failing to prescribe the right doses of painkillers to their patients. Sadly, this could have possibly started an epidemic of doctors prescribing too much medication to their patients. How did doctors go from not prescribing enough to making one of the nation's leading causes of death pharmaceutical drug overdoses?…
The United States has prevailed through numerous deadly epidemics in the past involving diseases such as Smallpox and Polio of which have killed thousands of people. All of which were overcome with the help of the country’s top medical researchers. Unfortunately, the country is currently undergoing through an Opioid epidemic, considered one of the leading causes of injury deaths in the United States. Whilst, these prescription drugs was created by pharmaceutical companies to further help relieve pain, depression, sleep insomnia, amongst many other psychological issues, people have now become addicted and dependent on these medications for daily…
Second of all, overdoses because of prescription drugs can affect anyone, and it causes more death than vehicle crashes. People have been more focused on making cars safer so you can basically text and drive at the same time, rather than making drugs more safe. In the article The Cost of the Opioid Crisis it states that the number of people dying because of prescription opioid is larger than those who die in motor vehicle accidents. People are still trying to make cars safer even though the opioid epidemic is now exceeding the amount of deaths. “ In 2013, though, opioids killed 16,235 people; that's approximately half as many as died in traffic accidents that year, and about 2,000 more than were murdered” (Pain medications are killing a shocking…
A recent report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration showed the rate of heroin overdose deaths skyrocketed 286 percent between 2002 and 2013. While pharmacological treatment exists for opioid use disorders, there are numerous barriers to access treatment, including the lack of physicians licensed to prescribe, providers who do not take insurance, waiting lists, and proximity to sites offering treatment.…
Prescription drug abuse is a fast-growing, nation-wide epidemic in the United States. Although millions of Americans receive medically prescribed drugs for their illnesses, which is considered legitimate usage, abusing prescription drugs means either a) someone is taking prescription medication that were not prescribed to them or b) someone is taking prescription drugs in a manner the drug was not intended for or is taking too much of the recommended doses. Common examples of such abusive behavior include people who take prescription medication for recreational purposes or people who are under heavy emotional distress and use drugs to relieve the pain.…
The Rate of Young Accidental Overdoses have Recently Increased Because Prescription Medication Abuse is Now on the Rise.…
Prescription drug abuse and addiction is a growing problem in our society. In 2007 an estimated seven million Americans abused prescription drugs, and almost twenty-eight thousand people died as a result of accidental drug overdose. In the United States drug overdoses are the second leading cause of unintentional deaths (CDC, 2010). Medication prescribed by physicians killed more people in that same than illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine combined (Harvard, 2011). Many members of our society do not view prescription drugs as dangerous. These medications are prescribed by a physician and purchased at a pharmacy to treat acute or chronic pain (Byrne, Lander, & Ferris, 2009).…
here has been an ever present threat within the United States that continues to grow at an alarming rate by the day; that threat is substance addiction. Nearly 38,000 deaths were linked to overdoses in 2009; that exceeds the total number of traffic violations for that year (“U.S Heroin Crisis”). Citizens and politicians continue to name it the number one “growing public health crisis” (“U.S Heroin Crisis”), but how do these users get addicted and what is the U.S doing to stop this so called “growing threat”? The U.S has recently deployed the overdose antidote Naloxone into the U.S, which has been a large area of debate between users and nonusers. This drug is a good way to get addicts on the road to recovery and a great way to train the average…
More than 100,000 people a year are being killed because they are overmedicated by doctors and other health care providers within the medical field. Drugs prescribed by those in medical practices can be helpful but can also be dangerous even lethal if used incorrectly. This not only applies to abusing drugs by not using them as prescribed, but also includes taking an incorrect dosage given by a doctor. Modern America obviously appreciates the benefits of prescription drugs, but many people may be taking medication for reasons that don't require medicating. Taking medicine for problems when pharmaceutical treatment is not needed can cause severe problems. All medications have some degree of side effects, but the medicine may not be safe for people…