Opioid Addiction In America by Gabriel Guerrero

            Everyday someone new becomes addicted to an opioid and takes the risk of becoming a statistic. This problem has only gotten worse over time. Across the country people struggle to get clean of opioids. The issue is becoming a world-wide crisis that is leaving devastating consequences. Opioids give people an analgesia sedation leaving them wanting more without any signs of becoming addicted. What the high doesn’t tell recreational users is that opioids can lead you down a path of artificial happiness with no remorse on your body. Heavy opiate use can cause veins to collapse and even lead to the heart becoming infected. This epidemic has become a serious problem in today’s world, but there are solutions to it.

            Opioids contain analgesic and euphoric properties; therefore, they are used extensively in the management of pain. The abuse of prescribed opioids has been on the increase with some researchers revealing the fact the use surpassed all street drugs in the US. Opioid addiction has come to be known as America’s 50 state epidemic, meaning each state has their own issues regarding the topic. Opioids are being smuggled down interstate highways in the form of cheap smuggled heroin, and is being flowed out of clinics where pain medicine is handed out like candy (Brauer 1). The epidemic has hit some areas harder than others. It has ripped through small new England towns leaving people over dosing in the middle of dollar store aisles.

           Public officials are calling this the worst drug epidemic in American history (Brauer 1). Killing more than 33,000 people in 2015, opioid overdoses almost tied car crash deaths the same year, heroin deaths alone surpassed gun homicides (Brauer 1). Right now there’s absolutely no sign of it letting up. More and more people become addicted every day. What’s scariest is it seems like a majority of the country is unaware of the severity in opioids. The country is too worried about other things they haven’t stopped to realize that this epidemic is taking out chunks of our society one by one.

             With all the negative the opioid epidemic is bringing, we are fortunate enough to have doctors researching night and day for new ways to try and break people of their habits. Before, if you were in a rural area, people would have to take long trips to treatment centers to receive help (Brauer 3). Only recently has things changed when two doctors were licensed to prescribe Suboxone, a drug that eases the withdraw symptoms that take a toll on the human body (Brauer 3).  Things like this have helped spawn more and more medications to help modify the addiction impact.

        Solutions   

            Drug addiction is something people have been battling for many years. Something everyone needs to understand is that, for someone to overcome an addiction, they must want to. When it boils down to it, the strongest cure is simply will-power. With it being 2018 and the world having so many different pills and potions, there’s no telling what it has in it that makes people want to crawl back to it. Of course, an opioid drug is very powerful, given that it’s meant for people with serious illness/pain. Who it’s meant for, and how it’s getting in to the wrong hands, could be the source of the issue.

            The solution to the epidemic is pretty straight forward. Stop letting people get addicted to it. In the words of the former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, “We must prevent more people from becoming addicted, this requires much more cautious prescribing” (Mitchell 3). One way the country can start that is to become stricter on who it’s being given to and for what purpose. Any person who would routinely be prescribed a certain dosage of opioids could be given a back-ground check to make sure there is no previous drug addiction history, or any drug related arrests. This could prevent giving a former user ammunition to spark another addiction, or giving a drug dealer a way to make money while getting other people hooked.

            Another possible solution that could solve, maybe not the addiction side of things, but the death toll that it leaves on our country, would be to make sure paramedics responders carry enough naloxone, which rapidly reverses opioid overdoses (Mitchell 3). This of course doesn’t completely solve the epidemic but at least sticks a dent in it by reducing the number of casualties our country has.

Camus, Absurdity and The Plague

            Albert Camus: an atheist and anarchist believed that the only one true philosophical problem is suicide (“Camus”). This is because suicide answers the question whether life is worth living. I think Camus would consider an opioid addict as someone who is suicidal, given that opioid overdoes are the leading cause of death for people under 50 (Mercola 1). Why would you take so much opioids if you thought life was worth living? Part of me also thinks that Camus, being a human being with feelings like everyone else, would have hope and belief in overcoming this epidemic. Camus once stated, “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” (“Camus”). Yet at the same time I feel as if he would be extremely contradicted on the opioid situation. Camus’ works stress about how the government and society impose to many restrictions on people’s freedom and rights. How could he be mad if people were dying day to day due to their own addiction to drugs?

Conclusion

             Everyday someone new becomes addicted to an opioid, and takes a risk of falling to the statistics. This problem is getting worse and worse, and the thought of beating this problem becomes less realistic. What the high doesn’t tell users is that opioids lead you down a path artificial happiness and possibly fatal illnesses. Heavy opioid use can cause veins to collapse with the possibility of heart failure. This epidemic is becoming worse by the day, but we can overcome it.

Works Cited

Mitchell, Jerry. “With 175 Americans Dying a Day, What Are the Solutions to the Opioid Epidemic?” The Clarion-Ledger, 2 Feb. 2018

www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/01/26/opioid-epidemic-solutions-naloxone-overprescribing-overdose-deaths/964288001/.

“Camus In Ten Minutes.” YouTube,  YouTube, 13 Feb. 2014

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekxXvgbDr3M.

“How Opioids Became One of the Biggest Killers of Americans.” Mercola.com, 16 Aug. 2017, articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/08/16/opioid-overdose.aspx.

Brauer, Scott. “Inside a Killer Drug Epidemic: A Look at America's Opioid Crisis.” The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2017

 www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/opioid-crisis-epidemic.html.