The Misuse of Opioids in the USA

The Misuse of Opioids in the USA

Kate Luna-Santiago

Salt Lake Community College

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For this signature project report, I will be talking about the misuse of opioids in the

United States. The misuse of opioids is at a high rate. Many people take advantage of the pills

that they are prescribed, that it sometimes leads to them overdosing or even death. First let’s talk

about what opioids are. Opioids are a type of drug or substance that is used to relieve pain. The

effects are similar to morphine or anesthesia. Opioids are normally prescribed to you by a doctor.

They’re usually pills. When you get your prescription, there is a label on the front side of the

bottle with instructions on when to take the medication, how many you should take, how many

refills you have left, and the name of the doctor who prescribed them. There’s also a label on the

side of the bottle that states the side effects of the pills that you may get. On the bottom of that

label, there’s a warning statement (sometimes it’s red) of what could happen if you take more

than the prescribed dosage and whether or not you can use them if you are pregnant or have any

other illness that could be affected by taking those pills.

There are people who completely depend on those pills because it makes them feel better.

When people don’t take the drug(s) anymore, their body goes into withdrawal which then makes

people retake the drug(s) so that the symptoms that they have will go away. People who misuse

opioids are teens-early adulthood, mostly because of the pressure of having a high social status in

school, they’re being bullied, they’re depressed, they're having suicidal thoughts, etc. Then there

are adults who misuse them because of their economic situation (it may not be good), their

social status, etc. When people take the pills, it’s not because they need to or because they feel

pain, but because it takes them away from reality for a little bit.
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Many request the doctor to prescribe more pills because they have pain in their body

when it’s not there. There isn’t a problem with taking pain pills unless you cross the line. Many

people overdose on opioids because they take too many at a time and unfortunately, they also

die.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “2018 data shows that everyday, 128

people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids”. If I did my calculations correctly,

that’s 46,720 people who die in just ​1​ year. About 80% of people who use heroin first, misuse

opioids. “Women have higher rates of POD admissions compared to men, while the admissions

for white HOD patients increased at a faster rate than black HOD patients from 1993 to

2008”(​http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu​). POD stands for prescription opioid

overdose and HOD stands for heroin related-overdoses. “In 2012, 2.1 million Americans were

estimated to have dependence or abuse prescription

opioids”(​http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu​).

There is a website called Labblog.uofmhealth.org, where a doctor named Kao-Ping Chua

mentions, “Poor mental health is a growing crisis among youth. It will be increasingly important

for clinicians to screen youth for mental health and substance use disorders before prescribing

opioids”. If this doesn’t tell you something, then you don’t see the problem. For Dr. Chua to say

this, it means that there are many young people who are using drugs and that there are some

parents may not even know about. When parents find out about this, they ask themselves,

“Where did he/she get the pills if it’s not from home? Who is supplying it to them?” It’s sad that

he said it, but hopefully it gets people's attention on this matter and it decreases the amount of

people who overdose/misuse opioids.

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There are many treatments or solutions to opioid misuse. You can go to rehab, call a

national hotline for help, talk to a therapist, a friend or someone you trust that will help you stop

your addiction. For doctors, they should prescribe only if it is necessary and try to use non opioid

medications.

References

Pamela G., Hu M., Wall M., Kandel D. (2019). Medical Use and Misuse of Prescription

Opioids in the US Adult Population:2016-2017. American Journal of Public

Health 109(9), 1258-1265.

Seth P., Rudd R., Noonan R., Haegerich T. (2018). Quantifying the Epidemic of

Prescription Opioid Overdose Deaths. American Journal of Public Health. 108(4),

500-502.

Mostafavi B. (2019). Opioid Overdose Risk Factors for Teens, College-Aged Youth

Mirror Adults.

https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/opioid-overdose-risk-factors-for-teens-colle

ge-aged-youth-mirror-adults

(2020). National Institute on Drug Abuse: Advancing Addiction Science

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis
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