McMahon 1

Elle McMahon

McLaughlin

English 12

19 February 2020

Prescription Drug Use and Abuse

Can you recall the last time you went without taking a prescription drug? Whether it’s

a minor complication such as a sinus infection or as serious as a torn ACL there is a

medication that can be prescribed to alleviate your symptoms. The thing that I was so

unaware of was how easily it is to obtain access to controlled medications such as

adderall, ritalin, vyvanse, and much more. I myself have been prescribed adderall for

ADHD and the process is easy enough that almost anyone could meet the standards if

they answer the questions correctly. Knowing that the process to get ahold of these

medications is so simple it wouldn’t be difficult for them to get in the wrong hands. If

and when these medications get in the wrong hands what happens to the individuals

illicitly buying them?

What most people are unaware of is that on average one hundred and thirty Americans

die every day from an opioid overdose, and in the nineteen nineties that was the most

advertised medication in the pharmaceutical industry that brought in millions of dollars

from the public (Martin B., Crescent, Hales M., Gu, Quipig and Ogden L., Cynthia).

Doctors from around the country were promoting its usage without realizing the addictive

properties it contained and because of that outbreak, over two point one million

Americans are addicted in the current era (Ireland). The advertisement, production, and
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manufacturing of prescription drugs must be improvised more cautiously before being

supplied to the public in order to prevent more individuals from being addicts.

DEPENDENCY RISKS

The dosages of these medications and the length of time prescribed are all contributing

factors to why and how people become addicted. Individuals that are prescribed

medications for pain, sleep deprivation and learning disabilities are more at risk for

dependency because of the addictive chemicals in the medications. The main issue with

individuals getting ahold of these prescriptions is what their actions are after they leave

the pharmacy, although most pharmacists instruct the patients how to take the medication

it doesn’t always prevent them from misusing them (Ireland).

Dangers of Prescription Drugs. ​In two thousand and eighteen, there was a survey

conducted by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health that estimated about “sixteen

point nine million Americans over the age of twelve have initiated misuse or misused

prescription drugs in the past year.” (Kelley). Considering that the United States alone

has a population of three hundred and twenty seven point two million people, the amount

of drug abuse is significantly high among the country. It is detrimental to our country that

out of the sixteen point nine million individuals that are abusing these drugs, there are

children accounted for within that number.

Even with regulation these controlled medications ((those which are regulated and

scheduled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)) are being increasingly misused
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day by day. With the numbers increasing more and more everyday, whether it comes to

abuse or deaths among the population, there are faults among the system of medication

regulation that need to be fixed and perfected in order to decrease these numbers.

A way of doing so could be by requiring that individuals should be required to

have monthly checkups to determine whether they are developing dependency and what

actions need to be taken to reduce or to stop it from progressing any farther. Even genetic

and personal history should be accounted for to know which patients need to be seen

more often than others due to the amount of exposure they have had to these drugs from

family members or friends. Especially because most people keep their medications in

their home, it becomes easier to obtain access to them from family and friends by sharing

pills with one another (Ireland). Taking the time to secure your medications, count the

pills and knowing who has access to them can save lives.

Pain Relievers. ​Prescription pain relievers in two thousand and nineteen were the third

highest substance with the largest number of initiates of use or misuse in the United

States (Kelley). The most commonly abused prescriptions I came upon while researching

were depressants, opioids and stimulants. The reason these medications are so commonly

misused is because of the euphoric feeling (the high) they provide to the people using

them (“Are the Benefits of Prescription Drugs Worth the Risks?”). Pain prescriptions,

although are very helpful to those who use them as directed, can create more harm than

good in a person’s life.

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Opioids, such as oxycodone and codeine were first introduced in the nineteen

nineties as safe pain relievers by doctors across the country, but later these same “safe”

medications started the “first wave of the opioid epidemic.” In this era of time, these

medications were televised daily and it was even possible for patients to call the doctor

and say the same of what prescription they desired. Doctors at the time thought that the

addiction threat was considered to be low so they wrote prescriptions for painkillers in

“record numbers.” Two decades later, physicians were writing two hundred and thirty

eight million prescriptions per year. To this day, there are two point one million people

currently affected by opioids and on average one hundred and fifteen Americans die

everyday from “Opioid-related overdose.” Forty percent of the Opioid related overdoses

were involving a written prescription from a doctor and the other sixty percent was from

illicitly sold medications. (Bezrutczyk).

At this point in time, patients were not fully informed that the same medications

that relieve all their pain can cause the patients to feel sleepy, sick to their stomach and

constipated. At higher doses they can create difficulty breathing and even in some cases

death. Opioid pain medications bind to molecules on to cells known as opioid receptors,

these receptors are the same ones that heroin react to. The receptors are found on nerve

cells throughout the human body and brain, which are all throughout the human body and

frontal lobe of the brain (“Prescription Drugs”). Due to the lack of information that the

doctors provided to the patients, millions are now addicted today. If these prescription

drugs were monitored and retained more carefully, then the Opioid epidemic could have

been avoided altogether.

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Stimulants. ​Stimulants are drugs used to treat disorders such as narcolepsy and ADHD.

They create the same euphoric feeling as Opioids, a feeling of calmness and an elevated

mood by increasing the amount of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain (Bittar). Just

like any other drug that affects the brain, they can cause physical dependence among an

individual. The reason that medications such as adderall, ritalin, concerta and ecstasy can

be so detrimental to your health is because they change your behavior, mood and

perceptions (“Prescription Drug Use”). This feeling of an elevated mood and europhia

can only be achieved by taking these drugs and once the individual stops taking them

their body craves that same intense feeling even more.

The withdrawal symptoms of these medications are too difficult to be dealt with

by oneself, without a professional’s help it is almost impossible to achieve full sobriety.

Four hundred and six thousand adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty five have

abused stimulants and one hundred and three thousand of those users ended up in

emergency care because of an overdose or withdrawal. The built up “unnatural amounts

of dopamine” that stimulants provide make it more difficult to be independent from it

because your brain is not able to make enough of it by itself (Bittar). This is why I

believe that prescription drugs should be monitored more cautiously and not completely

taken away. For the people that use these medications because they lack an amount of

dopamine in the brain or because they have been diagnosed with ADHD, ADD or

narcolepsy it would be unfair to get rid of them. In order to prevent more overdoses and

addicts the only action that needs to be taken is to have them monitored more strictly.
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REBUTTAL

​ rescription drugs give a lot of people the ability to go

Prescription Drugs Maintain Daily Lives. P

through their day without pain (“Are the Benefits of Prescription Drugs Worth the Risks?”). In

fact, out of the one hundred and thirty one million people that take prescriptions only eighteen

million people were reported to have abused them, which is seemingly small when the two

numbers are compared (“The Truth About Prescription Drug Abuse.”). For some people, the

risks of addiction and dependency are worth having relieved symptoms no matter what the cost

is (“Are the Benefits of Prescription Drugs Worth the Risks?”). The reason being is that not all

prescription drugs contain addictive properties and they can sometimes be the answer for life

threatening conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even cancer (Ireland).

The risks of prescription drugs may be worth it for some, but for others it has become

ruinous. On average, forty six people die everyday from drugs that are involved with prescription

Opioids and thirty five percent of the overdoses in two thousand and seventeen were associated

with Opioids as well (“Calculating Prescription Opioid Overdose Deaths”). That alone is only

one category of medications that have addictive factors that have caused thousands of deaths

every year. Although it is believed by some that without these prescriptions they would have a

lower quality of life, there are still dangers to taking them (Ireland). The death rate of

prescription drug overdoses out does any sort of quality of life.

​ octors are required by law to

You Won’t Become Addicted If You Take Them as Instructed. D

inform their patient on the dosage of the medication, when to take it and how to take it. What the
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patient decides to do after is out of the physician’s hands (Ireland). Recently, my grandmother

has gotten hip surgery and was prescribed 10 mg of oxycodone. She took it as directed and never

experienced dependency upon the pills. She is an example of someone who takes the medication

correctly and had no issues getting off of it.

The real issue is brought upon individuals when they experience dependency from the

medications they are prescribed. Xanax was prescribed to a woman named Patricia for her

anxiety, after taking it for a few weeks she began to crave the medication once it wore off. She

then made the executive decision to go cold turkey so that she could get it out of her system.

Within the first two days, she didn’t sleep or eat, she vomited and had hallucinations. The third

day, she became physically uncoordinated and unbalanced and the fourth day she started to have

“twitching sensations” throughout her entire body (“The Truth About Prescription Drug Abuse”).

Even though her doctor directed her on how and when to take the prescription, she still built up a

tolerance that then it turned into an addiction. Directed use doesn’t always stop the power of

addiction, every person is different and so is the way that their body reacts.

CONCLUSION

Although prescription drugs may cause more harm than good, their presence is still necessary in

order for individuals to go throughout their daily lives. In order to prevent the thousands of

deaths that occur each year, action must be taken to restrict and monitor the output of the

medications. Without immediate action, people will continue to suffer from misuse and

addiction. I believe that prescription drugs are beneficial to individuals that do not misuse the
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guided instructions for consumption and that the pharmaceutical industry needs to be more

regulated and contained to the public. If these precautions are not taken seriously then more and

more individuals will overdose in the years to come, background information of personal and

genetic history should be accounted for as well as a psychoanalysis should be performed to see if

the patient is a right fit for the medication.

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Works Cited

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aforeverrecovery.com, 10 Dec. 2015, aforeverrecovery.com/blogs

/drugs/are-the-benefits-of-prescription-drugs-worth-the-risks/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.

Bezrutczyk, Destiny. “The Opioid Epidemic.” ​rehabspot, ​rehabspot.com, 17 Dec. 2019.,

rehabspot.com/opioids/opioid-epidemic/ Accessed 03 Mar. 2020.

Bittar, Jasmine. “Stimulants.” ​rehabspot​, rehabspot.com, 17 Dec. 2019.,

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2018, healthfully.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-prescription-drugs-3583921.html Accessed 11

Feb. 2020.

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Pietrangelo, Ann and Kristeen Cherney. “The Effects of Adderall on the Body.” ​healthline​,

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