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Prescription Drug Abuse Cami Eggett12/09/2013Health 1050 – Roberts I chose to write my research paper on prescription drug abuse, which is a very disturbing current drug related issue. The Mayo Clinic defines prescription drug abuse as “The use of a prescription medication in a way not intended by the prescribing doctor.” This can be as simple as taking a friend’s prescribed pain medication for a headache, to illegally obtaining prescription drugs to crush and snort to get high. The most commonly abused drugs in the U.S. fall into the categories of: Opioids, narcotics, pain relievers, depressants and stimulants. Some of the common brand names include: Dilaudid, Lorcet, Lortab, OxyContin, Percocet, Percodan, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin and Concerta. These drugs are usually in tablet form which is either swallowed orally or crushed and snorted. Some abusers will even crush the pill, dissolve it in water and inject the mixture into their body. Young people usually obtain these drugs by buying or stealing them from friends, fellow classmates or family members. People with legitimate prescriptions will sometimes sell or give away their drugs. I came across an article called Prescription for Addiction, written by Thomas Catan, Devlin Barrett, and Timothy W. Martin. It was first published in The Wall Street Journal on October 5, 2012 and also posted online at - Prescription for Addiction. The authors claim that more Americans are now dying each year from prescription drug overdoses than from cocaine, heroin, and all other street or illicit drugs combined. The character that the authors used to humanize or attempt to connect the reader to on a personal and emotional level was a young 23 year old girl named Jaclyn Kinkade. Jaclyn was a lively, talkative woman with blond hair, a fear of caterpillars and a pit-bull terrier, Bentley, that went everywhere with her. She was a receptionist in a doctor’s office and an occasional model. Tragically, Jaclyn died from a prescription drug overdose. The results of the investigative autopsy performed after her death revealed that there were three different drugs found in her body, two of which were prescription drugs given to her by doctors. The article takes an objective approach of trying to identify who should be held responsible for the premature loss of this young woman’s life. Jaclyn’s parents, Ann and Bruce Kinkade, acknowledge their daughters poor choice in taking prescription drugs in a manner that was not prescribed, but extend the fault of her death to the pharmaceutical companies and doctors that prescribed the medication to her. Because prescription pain killers are distributed through major pharmacy outlets by men and women in white lab coats and not on street corners or under viaducts, they carry the notion of being “legal” drugs. This psychologically diminishes the dangerous – and even potentially deadly – properties that these powerful drugs carry. Furthermore, because these drugs are “legal” it makes it extremely difficult to control their abuse. The doctors, pharmacists, pharmaceutical manufacturers and each party involved with the distribution of these drugs would all like to blame each other for the problems associated with these drugs. Doctors want pharmacies to be able to tell if patients are secretly using several physicians, pharmacies say they can’t second guess a valid prescription, manufacturers say they are simply delivering a product ordered by doctors and the vicious cycle never ends. The article brings up different doctors and pharmacies that have been coming under fire and being investigated for prescribing and selling too many narcotics. It also details the effects that opioids have on the brain and how the cycle of addiction changes the brains behavior. The use of the Kinkade family’s experience illustrates the complexities and ranges of emotions that surround this difficult topic. One thing is certain however, and that is the fact that prescription pain medications are being consumed at an all-time high, all over the United States of America. These powerful drug types, mainly opioids, historically had been prescribed and administered only to cancer or terminally ill patients, because they possess powerful properties that were feared to become addictive. For the last 15 years, they have been prescribed for chronic pain, but the problem is that while many patients are taking these prescription pain pills for legitimate pain management reasons, over time they may become addicted and begin seeking them actively, buying them off the street and in some cases even mixing them with other street-type drugs. The evidence that this article presents supports the claim that more Americans are dying from prescription drug overdoses than all other street drugs combined. It further illustrates that rising opioid abuse is now the single largest cause of accidental death in America – even greater than traffic accidents! It is a difficult challenge and presents many dynamics for control that even conventional “illegal” drugs don’t possess. There are no Pablo Escobar’s with a prescription pad to pursue. The drugs are sold in our communities through popular companies, such as Walgreens and CVS. The manufacturers aren’t making these drugs out of the back of an RV in the middle of the desert, rather in the largest and most capable laboratories on the planet. Yet all of these players are the “villains” per se, if it is worth speculating on who is to blame. This is a conversation that needs to continue to have open and objective dialogue. Indeed, there needs to be better control on prescription pain medications and there are arguments from many perspectives as to who is responsible for the ease and availability of these drugs. Another disturbing trend I came across while researching this topic was the use of stimulants that are prescribed for ADD and ADHD such as Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin etc by high school and college students not necessarily to get high, but to help them achieve better grades, tests scores and receive scholarships. Adderall’s primary use is to improve focus and concentration. I came across an article published online in the New York Times called In Their Own Words: “Study Drugs”, written by Alan Schwarz published in June 2012. The New York Times asked for letters from young people across the country about the abuse of these drugs in their own lives to achieve academic advantages, the Times received almost 200 responses. All of the letters remain anonymous. Some of these young people made excuses for their prescription drug abuse, reasons like “college is too hard to get into these days”, “Parents put too much pressure on their kids to be the best”, “Schools put too much pressure on their students”. Some students owned up to their drug abuse, one in particular saying “I take Adderall. Maybe I have A.D.D. Maybe I don't. I don't really know. I knew how to say the right things to the psychologist to get the diagnosis, and the pills that make my life much easier.” And “I go to a competitive high school. I don’t have a good excuse.”Many of these students spoke of the horrible side effects, the crash, these pills cause. They became irritable, unreliable and lost friends, but they continued to take the drugs because they were getting better scores on tests and better grades than they ever had before and it was “worth it”. So many of the students that wrote in touched on the same issue that if all of their peers and classmates were taking these drugs, they also needed to or they would be “behind” everyone else. One student questioned how these parents that are so proud of their children for doing so well and getting better grades than the other kids, would feel if they found out their children were stealing, dealing and doing drugs to “make them proud”. One of my favorite quotes from this article stated this drug use is “irresponsible quick fix for a much deeper rooted problem of instant gratification in this country. They replace self-discipline and healthy, responsible habits with a drug culture that teaches us that there is a drug for every occasion “. Adderall, the main drug these students mentioned being taken, can cause some serious side effects. . Chronic abuse is marked by severe rash, insomnia, irritability and personality changes. The most severe symptom of abuse is psychosis, which is often indistinguishable from schizophrenia. There can also be nervousness, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, sleeplessness, nausea, stomach pain, dry mouth and even cardiac arrest among many others. Michele Leonhart , a DEA administrator, says “I?am certain that the more we can do to stop the abuse of prescription drugs, the more effective we will be in reducing the death, destruction and despair that accompanies?all?drug abuse.?? By preventing drug abuse where it starts, we can make a tremendous difference in the life of our nation: one community, one family and one child at a time.” Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own health. The family is where the first line of defense needs to be raised. The Kinkade family sadly lost their daughter prematurely through a drug overdose that she induced upon herself. Education about the dangers of these drugs and vigilance in their use needs to be as important a topic as it is for illicit drug and alcohol use. Stopping demand for the drugs on an individual level is the most effective way of curbing their supply on a macro level, and taking drugs as prescribed have been proven to be a generally safe way to avoid undesired side effects. It all starts and stops with us.Works CitedLeonhart, Michele?M. "DEA Administrator: Help Us Stop Prescription Drug Abuse | The Partnership at ."?Support and Resources for Parents Dealing with Teen Drug and Alcohol Abuse | The Partnership at . N.p., 29?Apr.?2011. Web. 11?Dec.?2013.Levinthal, Charles F.?Drugs, Behavior, and Modern Society. 7th?ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon,?2008. Print."Prescription drug abuse - ."?Mayo Clinic. N.p., 11?Oct.?2012. Web. 11?Dec.?2013.Schwarz, Alan. "In Their Own Words: ‘Study Drugs’ - ."?The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., 13?June?2012. Web. 11?Dec.?2013. ................
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