Wait, depression and opioid addiction are linked?
Opioids: a potentially deadly class of painkillers that are claiming the lives of Canadians every day. This ever-growing death toll is the cause of an escalating health crisis; an epidemic of opioid addiction. In 2016, over 2,500 people died of opioid-related causes.
Depression: a word many people use to describe a change in mood or convey a feeling of weakness. Yet, contrary to popular belief, it is a real medical condition that affects the lives of many people around the world every day. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 300 million people suffer from depression globally.
The even more alarming news is that opioid addiction and depression have been clinically proven to have a bi-directional relationship. This means that suffering from one increases the risk of the other. Yet, it gets worse. In a study from St. Louis University, researchers found that of over 100,000 patients prescribed opioids, over 90,000 developed depression after using opioid medication for just one month. These patients were prescribed opioid medication for illnesses such as back pain, headaches, arthritis, etc. and had not received a diagnosis of depression prior to treatment.
Researchers believe that depression stems from opioids’ ability to cause changes in the brain’s reward and pleasure system. The same report suggested that opioids become less effective when the patient is diagnosed with depression, which leads to an increased use of the drug to achieve the desired effect.
Many opioid users turn to heroin, as it is cheaper and sometimes more accessible. Approximately one in four users of heroin become addicted to the drug. To illustrate, within the last ten years, heroin use has doubled in the United States.
This opioid crisis is being fueled by the internet, and drug dealers continue to use the ubiquitous resource to extend to a larger audience- millennials. Among the dead are two 13-year-olds who died last fall after taking a synthetic opioid known as U-47700 or “Pinky”. They received the opioid from a teenage friend who had purchased it online using crypto currency.
More Information
If you want to learn more about opioids, I would highly recommend that you watch the “Opioids” episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
About the Author
I am a grade 11 student from London, Ontario. I am a 3-Time Canada Wide Science Fair alumni and medalist and have an interest in all things STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Math).
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