Opioids in the U.S.
Prince. Many know him as one of the most eccentric and outgoing artists of the 20th century. He was, and still is, idolized and adored by many. And he is yet another victim of opioid use. On April 21, 2016, Prince was found dead in his home in Paisley Park. An autopsy revealed that he had died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, an opioid used as a pain medication (Puente). But, he is definitely not the only one to suffer from an opioid addiction. Prince has been added to the ever-growing list of celebrities that have been killed by opioids.
However, opioid use does not strictly affect celebrities; in fact, opioids have become an epidemic that has swept across the US, with 115 people dying every single day from an opioid overdose (Opioid Crisis Fast Facts). This insane number raises two very important questions: Why are opioids such an issue in the United States, and what can be done about it?
Medically, opioids are used as pain relievers. Recreationally, they are used to give people an extreme “high” that gets more and more addictive every time it is chased. Morphine, hydrocodone, and heroin are all examples of opioids. This type of drug didn’t used to be such an issue, however. Before the 1990s, opioids weren’t the most prominent of all drug crises, crack and cocaine were. But, that all changed in the late 90s, when pharmaceutical companies informed the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioids (Opioid Overdose Crisis). Doctors and citizens alike began to believe that opioids were completely safe to use, and had little worries about the effects the drugs could have on them. As a result, doctors began prescribing them at a much higher rate, thus increasing the amount of people misusing them (Opioid Overdose Crisis). The rate of opioid-related overdoses has drastically increased since the late 1990s, with 42,249 Americans dying from opioids in 2016 alone (Opioid Crisis Fast Facts). Joan Hartman, Vice President of behavioral health services for Chestnut Health Systems, has been working in substance abuse treatment in Illinois for 30 years. “In all my years I’ve worked in the substance abuse field, I’ve never had so many patients die,” Hartman says (Stobbe). She is referring to the drastic number of opioid-related deaths that have been increasing in the US over the past few decades.
These highly-addictive drugs spare no one; people of all backgrounds, genders, races, and ages are affected. Many people think that opioid use is more common in urban populations, and yet it is rural communities have taken first prize for opioid use in recent years (Runyon). Jack Westfall, a family physician and researcher at the University of Colorado, works with rural clinics and hospitals in Colorado.
“The number one issue we’re facing [in rural Colorado] is opioids”, Westfall says.
But, why are opioids so prevalent in rural communities? This issue can be attributed to the fact that there simply aren’t as many treatments, such as physical therapy, available for recovering patients there. Because of this, doctors rely heavily on opioids to treat their patients and prescribe them at an extremely high rate (Runyon). This leads to more and more cases of addiction and very few resources to treat said addictions. These communities, and many others, will continue to suffer if proper precautions and treatments to the opioid epidemic are not made.
If nothing changes, and the epidemic continues on the path that it is on, the consequences will be insurmountable. A prediction by STAT states that the opioid epidemic death toll could rise to 500,000 deaths in the next decade. In addition to the pain that thousands of families will have to endure, “the overdoses will cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars” (Blau). In fact, in 2015 alone, the opioid crisis cost the United States $504 billion (Opioid Crisis Cost U.S. Economy). That is the equivalent of each and every one of the 323.1 million American citizens paying $1,559.89. This staggering number is in terms of loss of lives, loss of productivity, healthcare and treatment, criminal justice, and various other costs (Opioid Crisis Cost U.S. Economy).
However, the US government is making steps to improve and, hopefully, end this costly crisis. The US Department of Health and Human Services is trying to end the opioid epidemic by focusing its efforts on five major strategies, the most prominent of which is improving access to recovery and treatment services (About the U.S.). Without the addition of more proper treatment and recovery centers, many opioid addicts will continue to overdose and many will die. Those that do survive from said overdoses will have few resources to help them recover and will most likely end up using once again. This cycle of using and overdosing can hopefully be stopped with new recovery centers appearing all over the country. These new centers will hopefully allow addicts to recover and rebuild their lives, just like Dresden after the bombing.
The opioid epidemic that is ravaging the United States is a battle that will be extremely hard to win, but if the US government makes this costly and deadly crisis a priority, improvements will be on the horizon. The lives lost to opioids must never be forgotten, and precautions must be taken to stop the loss of even more.
Work Cited
“About the U.S. Opioid Epidemic.” HHS, US Department of Health and Human Services, 12
Feb. 2018, https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/
Blau, Max. “STAT Forecast: Opioids Could Kill Nearly 500,000 Americans in the Next Decade.”
STAT, STAT, 12 Feb. 2018,
STAT forecast: Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade
“Opioid Crisis Cost U.S. Economy $504 Billion in 2015: White House.” Reuters, Thomson
Reuters, 21 Nov. 2017,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-opioids-cost/opioid-crisis-cost-u-s-economy-504-
billion-in-2015-white-house-idUSKBN1DL2DS
“Opioid Crisis Fast Facts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 02 Mar. 2018,
https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/health/opioid-crisis-fast-facts/index.html
“Opioid Overdose Crisis.” NIDA, NIH, 23 Feb. 2018,
https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis
Puente, Maria. “A Year After Prince’s Death, These Questions Remain Unanswered.” USA
Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 21 Apr. 2017,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2017/04/20/death-prince-one-year-later-what-
do-we-know/100180398/
Runyon, Luke. “Why Is The Opioid Epidemic Hitting Rural America Especially Hard?”
NPR Illinois, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 04 Jan. 2017,
http://nprillinois.org/post/why-opioid-epidemic-hitting-rural-america-especially-hard#strea
m/0
Stobbe, Mike. “Opioid Epidemic Shares Chilling Similarities with the Past.” AP News,
Associated Press, 28 Oct. 2017,
https://www.apnews.com/dc926eb0cf114067a35d303c9b18a9cf/Opioid-epidemic-shares
-chilling-similarities-with-the-past