Opioid Theory Paper

“I’d set out to tell her I was sorry about dinner. But I know that my apology runs much deeper. That I’m ashamed I never tried to help her in the woods. That I let the Capitol kill the boy and mutilate her without lifting a finger.”(Hunger Games, p85)

The opioid problem is big. The fact that multiple parties (FDA, Pharmacies, Doctors) are involved make the problem even more complex and difficult to fix. One of the best ways to begin helping the opioid crisis is within the FDA. The different types of opioids need to be re-tested to evaluate their necessity within our healthcare system. Too many readily available opioids are not beneficial. Next are doctors need to be taught to stand up again big pharmaceutical companies. These companies have their priority in profit, not patient care. Hopefully by implementing these factors, the opioid crisis can become a problem of the past.

SOURCE: “F.D.A. to Expand Medication-Assisted Therapy for Opioid Addicts,” Sheila Kaplan, The New York Times Company, February 25, 2018.

The opioid crisis was caused by a variety of factors, but the main reason why these drugs are in the spotlight is because of the actions of the drug manufacturers. In order to fully understand the spark of the opioid crisis, it is imperative to understand what makes these drugs so potent. Writer and crime journalist Sam Quinones states that opioids are synthetic drugs. Naturally sourced drugs, known as opiates, are derived from the opium poppy plant. However, experts use both of these terms interchangeably. The use of opioids grew around the late 90s, and legally, most people used these drugs for pain relief. However, the people that were using these drugs had little information as to how addicting opioids actually were. In fact, opioids are

Opioid addiction is a condition that is preventable as well as one which individuals display several noticeable risk factors before the actual addiction prognosis to the point of causing death. There is a strong correlation between the early misuse of prescription opioids, which are prescribed for non-cancer pain management, and the development of a dependence on such opioids. Early detection of risk factors such as the misuse of opioids that are prescribed will help indicate that a patient is developing an addiction.1 Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers must closely monitor patients and the rate at which opioids are consumed as well as refilled.

In my opinion, the opioid crisis is not covered enough outside of the healthcare industry. Before completing my research paper on opioid crisis I was not aware that the opioid crisis was such an important topic. As a young adult I should be aware that this is an subject that needs to be addressed because it effects us the most. I do feel that this problem is more focused on effecting young adults due to us not being educated about the topic. Spreading awareness should be the first thing we think about when attempting to handle the situation.

As we see the further progression of the opioid epidemic within the United States, pharmacists become the frontlines to recognizing and providing care for these patients. It is however difficult to provide care for a patient when even the professionals within the medical community have an associated stigma attached to the use of these drugs. Patients who have a need for these painkillers recognize this stigma, and by doing so decide to avoid consulting their doctors and do not seek the care which they need. They do this to avoid the discriminatory treatment they receive both within and on the outside of the healthcare system, and to avoid the legal repercussions associated with the misuse and abuse of these products1. It is therefore the pharmacists' job to avoid the stigmatization of these people and respect those who use these treatments for legitimate medical purposes.

Milwaukee is currently facing an epidemic. This epidemic is the usage of opioids. Every year, the death toll grows from opioids usage. Opioid overdoses are America's leading killer. People are becoming more and more addicted to them and it is causing the user to overdose on the drugs. There are many types of opioids with different usages. This causes short and long term effects which can later lead the body to experience withdrawal from the drugs.

The opioid epidemic that has taken over the United States is likely the largest public health crisis that our country has faced in the 21st century. It has torn countless families and small rural communities apart in its wake, and does not currently show signs of slowing down anytime in the near future. In the last couple decades, the United States’ government has addressed the epidemic as a criminal problem. Treating those affected by the opioid crisis like criminals has not yielded positive results overall. For some time, the public opinion has predominantly been that this epidemic should not be blamed on anyone other than those who take these opioids, and that it is their own personal downfalls and bad judgement that is responsible for their specific situation. While opioid abusers certainly deserve some accountability for their actions, there is abundant evidence of greater forces at work that have a lot of influence on their decisions.

My concerned is the current opioid epidemic in our society. There has been a significant increase in the use of opioid analgesics for pain control. There is a corresponding growth in the rate of abuse, misuse, and overdose of these drugs. As a nurse, I had witnessed and continue to witness patients coming in the emergency room from opioids overdose between the ages of 12 and 25 and this situation continue to increase in number. There is a significant increase in number of teenagers using opioid they buy from the street and others the opioid from family member who were given prescription and other situations

The Opioid Crisis is a human rights issue that people need to be aware of because everyday more than 115 people die in the United States because of opioid overdoses. People use drugs such as painkillers and heroin, they aren’t thinking when they use them and they don’t know the damage it does to them but they will do anything for the high that they get from those drugs.

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

According to NIH, millions of people suffer from opioid use disorder throughout the United States. This epidemic has continued to spread and the numbers of people who are becoming addicted is on the rise so much that the total burden of cost is at 78.5 billion dollars per year for prescription opioid misuse, this includes the cost of addiction treatment, criminal justice services, and health care (NIH, 2017. https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-crisis) Unfortunately there does not seem to be an end to this epidemic anytime soon. The numbers are unremarkable; natural and semi-synthetic opioids peeked at 14,427, heroin at 15,446 and synthetic opioids other than methadone at 20,145. That is a total of 50,018 deaths for some type

I am currently a sophomore undergraduate Marketing major and Digital Studies minor. If I receive the scholarship the financial contributions NSCS has provided will be of great assistance in paying my educational expenses. I plan to study aboard in Spain over the summer to study Spanish and International Business. With help from the generous scholarship, I will be one step closer to achieving my educational and career goals. I believe I deserve to earn the scholarship because my involvement at the University of Mary Washington depicts my dedication and persistence in giving back to the school and the community while putting my education to good use. One way in which I am using my education to enrich my time at UMW is through my work with Community Outreach and Resources. My time at COAR has given me a deep appreciation for how volunteerism

On my commute home that night, I began to wonder about the implications of the situation. After returning home, I fixed myself dinner and decided that a session of meditation would help me to think clearly and to approach the situation with an objective mindset. After a quick shower and a change into more comfortable attire, I sat out on my back patio and relaxed into a session of the Vipassana meditation that I had learned as a student to manage stressful situations. After an hour of meditation, I felt mentally refreshed, relaxed, and ready to approach the question of ethics that was before me. I began to consider what I knew about the situation and the possible outcomes of letting it go uncommented on. Deceiving the client is not only completely a unethical business practice, but it could create a ripple of negative effects. If the plant ran without noticing the differences between their actual and expected results, they would be unaware that their emissions were higher than they had been told to expect, possibly making their emissions rates unintentionally higher than the legal limit under the EPA. This would create a situation similar to that of the Volkswagen scandal uncovered in 2015, in which an algorithm that caused the vehicle to run differently when being tested allowed 11 million vehicles to emit 40 times the amount of pollutants specified as the maximum allowable level by the EPA [1]. The Volkswagen scandal caused millions of car owners to unknowingly