The Opioid Crisis
The health care system globally mainly aims to ensure that people receive healthcare services to improve their quality of life and help people live more comfortably. Access to health is a fundamental human right. It must be available to every person, the government is mainly responsible for making sure that every citizen receives the health care they need. However, with the so much-needed service, the patient sometimes gets more hurt due to the side effects of the treatment given to them by the health care workers. Treatment often consists of a combination of prescribed drugs and procedures done by medical staff. Practitioners usually prescribe the medications to help manage the health issue the patient is experiencing, and often, the issue concerns pain. The doctor can prescribe drugs to help ease the patient’s pain, and opioids fall in that category. Opioids have various medical purposes. However, they proved to be highly addictive, and due to the enormous number of patients with opioid prescriptions, it affected many people. This paper aims to discuss the global opioids crisis, the measures put in place to fight it, and recommendations on how to handle it better.
Opioids describe drugs that arise from a plant called the opium poppy and can be prescribed or found on the streets. Opioids range from prescription drugs such as Vicodin to heroin used on the street (Fischer et al., 2020). Opioids block pain receptors in the brain and relieve the pain of the patient as the body heals. Opioids also tend to give the patient a feeling of relaxation and happiness, which can lead to addiction. Opioids are known to slow down breathing rate when used in high doses; therefore, overdosing may lead to death. Prolonged use of Opioids contributes largely to the drug’s addiction, which comes with complications. Such as the increased tolerance to pain and the mental health deterioration that accompanies any addiction (Gomes et al., 2018). The opioid crisis started in the 1990s when doctors thought that the drug would not be addictive from the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured opioids (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The medics increased the prescription of opioids to patients, and it was later clear that the drugs were highly addictive.
The increased prescription of the drugs led to the misuse of opioids in the communities, with cases of opioid overdose rampant among users. Research shows that over a million users of opioids developed disorders due to their use (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The fact that synthetic opioids can be prescribed and made legal makes it even harder to control the crisis.. The street forms of opioids, such as heroin, have proven to be relatively easier to combat than synthetic opioids, which were legalized by policymakers, making it even harder to go back on the law previously set. The big pharmaceuticals companies also are a hurdle in the fight against the opioid crisis as they make money off the drugs they manufacture at the expense of the well-being of the patients (Dasgupta et al., 2018). Pharmaceutical corporations use their influence to ensure they are in business as more become addicted to the opioid drugs they make. By the year 2021, over 10 million people had misused prescribed opioids. The threats posed by the opioid crisis warrant taking action to protect the ordinary citizen from the menace of opioid use.
In 2017 a state of emergency on the opioid crisis was declared by the Human Health Services in the United States of America (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The government formed a committee to alleviate the damage already done to the American citizens. The declaration of the state of the emergency was to speed up the already delayed process of fighting the opioid crisis. The committee came up with strategies that wanted to ensure patients do not become over-dependent on opioids and reduce the number of people addicted to the drugs. One of the major concerns of the opioid crisis was the high number of fatalities due to overdose. Reports indicate that 91 Americans die daily due to opioid-related overdoses (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). This statistic was high and there needed to be an action to try and prevent the deaths due to overdose. The committee came up with a plan to ensure overdose-reversing drugs such as Naloxone were readily available and broadly distributed throughout the country to patients at risk of overdosing from opioids to access the drugs. The easy access to overdose-reversing drugs gives a chance to prevent death in case of an overdose.
Addiction turns regular community members into people who cannot function without the use of opioids. Addicts often have unclear judgment and may act irresponsibly, putting the lives of others at risk in one way or another (Dasgupta et al., 2018). A community that has high addiction numbers is almost always associated with an increased crime rate as the addicts turn to crime to finance their addiction. The nature of opioids, especially the prescribed ones from the health facilities, puts more people at the risk of addiction due to the legality of their use, and one may become unknowingly addicted to the drugs as they try to treat their pain in the hospital (Gomes et al., 2018). Although addiction has numerous adverse effects on family and society, some still find it hard to describe it as a condition and only blame the addict for their misfortune. This perspective of addiction makes it harder for a person to recover as society views them as the culprit instead as a person who needs help. The discrimination against addicts is more damaging to a person’s mental health than the addiction itself.
In their plan to combat the opioid crisis, the Human Health Service prioritized support services to prevent, treat, and recover people affected by opioids. In prevention, various campaigns have been funded and conducted to ensure the public knows the dangers of opioid use and misuse in the case of prescribed opioids (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The campaigns aim at enlightening the communities on different ways to fight addiction and how to interact with addicted individuals in society. In treatment and recovery, there is the establishment of various public rehabilitation centers to offer professional help to those addicted to opioids who require care from trained personnel to overcome the burden of addiction (Saloner et al., 2018). Training Health care workers help them improve in handling patients with opioid disorders and how to treat them according to their condition. Medics play a huge role in the fight against opioids. Patients are legally allowed to access opioid drugs through their prescriptions. Therefore, they must be responsible and refrain from prescribing opioids unnecessarily when there is an alternative. Some hospitals have enacted zero use of opioids on patients.
Alternative ways of managing pain in patients have to be applied more for the patients to avoid using opioids, reducing the chances of addiction and the growth of the opioid crisis (Gomes et al., 2018). The Human Health services advocates for using other means to control pain while treating patients. The development of better pain management drugs will challenge the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioids to turn them into better alternatives reducing the number of opioid medications available (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The unprescribed opioids such as heroin need strict regulation with policies that have strict punishment of those who fill the communities with such drugs that negatively impact people’s lives.
The fight on opioids is collective and requires everyone to join in doing their particular bits to ensure a sober society with productive members independent of substance abuse and addiction (Belzak & Halverson, 2018). Society plays a crucial role in making sure the related authorities collect data to create measures against opioids. The public can report practitioners who unnecessarily prescribe opioids to patients for evaluation to protect patients from unethical practitioners, which is a step in the right direction. The public can also organize rallies and educational programs. Setting up training programs helps people occupy and put their attention to more activities providing an alternative to fight addiction and better management of pain. The governments and authorities can do a lot to fight the opioid pandemic (Belzak & Halverson, 2018). However, what matters most is the patient and the society members get together and fight against opioids.
Over the years, leaders have politicized the fight against the opioid crisis. Politicians use it as a campaigning tool to get elected. Once elected, very few act on their promises as most are influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, generating significant revenue (Kurth et al., 2018). The governments should be more considerate of the people they serve and implement strict laws on the manufacture and distribution of opioids to the public. The authorities have to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, which consists of people that just want to make money even if the public is suffering. The opioid industry is a global menace (Fischer et al., 2020). Although there is little medical value, governments have to collaborate to ensure that opioid use reduces globally. The international community can enact policies to ensure that opium production is controlled and highly regulated to ensure there is no room for any illegalities in dealing with opioids (UNODC, 2018). The global market must also restrict the sale of prescribed opioids to ensure the manufacturers do not profit as much from the sale of the opioids, which could lead to a decrease in production.
The opioid crisis affects all citizens worldwide, and governments coming together to make solutions may be the most effective way of fighting the pandemic. The United Nations advocates for the well-being of the global citizen and quality health care for all as part of the set Sustainable Development Goals (UNODC, 2018). Therefore, it is the responsibility of the global governments to ensure the health of citizens in every aspect, from mental to physical. People must not be exposed to unrequired drug use to protect them from complications that arise in the long run. The opioid crisis highlights the bad in the pharmaceutical industry and some unethical medical practitioners that should be of global concern and measures taken against them if the worldwide health care system is to achieve the set goals (UNODC, 2018). In an approach to the opioid crisis, the health care system can ultimately get rid of the use of opioids in treating and managing pain in patients. The development of alternative management techniques can ensure that the opioid pandemic does not happen again in the future. Although it may be challenging to implement, the total abolishment of opioid use may be an effective strategy in the fight against the opioid pandemic.
Works Cited
Belzak, L., & Halverson, J. (2018). Evidence synthesis — The opioid crisis in Canada: a national perspective. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, 38(6), 224–233. https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.38.6.02
Dasgupta, N., Beletsky, L., & Ciccarone, D. (2018). Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to Its Social and Economic Determinants. American Journal of Public Health, 108(2), 182–186. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2017.304187
Fischer, B., Pang, M., & Jones, W. (2020). The opioid mortality epidemic in North America: do we understand the supply side dynamics of this unprecedented crisis? Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, And Policy, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13011-020-0256-8
Gomes, T., Tadrous, M., Mamdani, M., Paterson, J., & Juurlink, D. (2018). The Burden of Opioid-Related Mortality in the United States. JAMA Network Open, 1(2), e180217. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.0217
Kurth, A., Cherutich, P., Conover, R., Chhun, N., Bruce, R., & Lambdin, B. (2018). The Opioid Epidemic in Africa and Its Impact. Current Addiction Reports, 5(4), 428–453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-018-0232-9
Saloner, B., McGinty, E., Beletsky, L., Bluthenthal, R., Beyrer, C., Botticelli, M., & Sherman, S. (2018). A Public Health Strategy for the Opioid Crisis. Public Health Reports, 133(1_suppl), 24S-34S. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354918793627
U.S Department of Health and Human Services. (2017). HHS Acting Secretary Declares Public Health Emergency to Address National Opioid Crisis. Retrieved 21 April 2022, from https://public3.pagefreezer.com/browse/HHS.gov/31-12-2020T08:51/https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2017/10/26/hhs-acting-secretary-declares-public-health-emergency-address-national-opioid-crisis.html
UNODC. (2018). Responding to global opioid crisis, UNODC launches strategy to protect public health. United Nations: Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved 21 April 2022, from https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2018/June/responding-to-global-opioid-crisis--unodc-launches-strategy-to-protect-public-health.html.
