“Abuse of painkillers reaches ‘epidemic’ levels in US”
-Amber Kocher
Abuse of painkillers and prescription drugs in the US has risen according to a report done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The article states that sales of prescription drugs have risen quickly and sharply over the last few years. This is connected to the face that fatalities caused by the misuse of prescription drugs and narcotic pain relievers have more than tripled in the last decade. According to a report done by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the sales of the individual drugs to pharmacies has gone up for than 300% since the year 1999, as well as the actual prescriptions being given to patients by doctors. Solutions were suggested such as individual state health policies being harsher and a crack down on tracking prescriptions being given inappropriately.
This article is startling in that the CDC is claiming that this “epidemic” is now being called the fastest growing drug problem in the US. It says that overdoses on pain relievers cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. The United States has always been on a fast track whether it’s in technology, war, politics, science, murder rates, etc. Health care is a huge issue in the US currently, and while there are many flaws in the systems and solutions being used and also suggested as change, the government really should become more involved. The tendency to pop a pill every time you aren’t feeling well isn’t strictly an American problem, but its certainly more common in the US. The United States has a large effect on other countries, as well as its relations with other powerful nations in Europe and so on, and if money and production and technology is being spent on something that’s becoming a serious problem and “epidemic”, there definitely needs to be change. Harsher regulation of doctors and patients, while still retaining the freedoms that citizens have in their healthcare choices, needs to happen. The only problem is that if it’s possible to balance the influence of the government while still retaining the choice of individual health care for some.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15548478
This article reminds me a lot of the things my mother has said to me. She has a lot of health issues that have consumed her, and she takes medicine for them. But one thing she has always said, is that pray and trust in God is all the medicine you really need. And I feel like it is true. I know that new diseases are present every day therefore medicine is needed to cure them. But lets be real, some of these "sickness" can really but cured with a good night sleep. In my opinion a lot of doctors today are focused more on making money and telling their patients what they feel they want to hear instead of the truth. A lot of time medicine isnt needed, and I really wish that doctors make that known because if they do, they will save people money but also the agony of all that medication and side effects.
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