In schools, around communities, and at the family dinner table, political leaders, parents, and teachers cannot stress enough about the cost of using drugs. In a modern society with vast technology and more dangerous drugs than ever, addiction and abuse is a subject everyone is worrying about. With more people in prison than ever for drug-related charges and over 35% of American Highschool students admitting to using Marijuana or another illicit substance during the four-year period of High School, drug availability is out of control and many don’t know what the answer to stopping it is.
With the Marijuana and other common drugs in American High Schools acting as the poster child for this problem, the DEA has released a statement explaining to Americans that these might not be a big worry; but instead Prescription drugs. Today in the United States, prescription based drugs are currently leading as the most abused type of drugs in the country, and the drug leading to the most overdose-related deaths.
The reason for starting these drugs or beginning to experiment with the idea is often due to past injury or stress from school, sports or other activities. Students take these drugs shocked by the short-term beneficial effect (i.e. higher pain tolerance, muscle gain, focus etc.) and then realize down the road that these drugs are highly addictive and begin struggling with substance abuse issues and dependency.
The leading reason for people getting addicted to prescription drugs leads to my main idea for my project; over a distribution of prescription drugs. These drugs are over prescribed in this country and are available to anyone and everyone with the right injury, story or lie. Unlike other drugs, these are legal to have and easily assessable up to all ages. The DEA reports that most teenagers are likely to become addicted at the age of 14 and some analysts have reported cases of people abusing these drugs into their late 90’s for pain control.
Prescription drug abuse is a silent killer and it is something that needs to be understood in this country. These drugs have and can offer many good things to people in desperate need of pain relieve and help, but are highly addictive and I hope to look into the medical world to see what alternatives can be used instead of flooding the market with dangerous drugs that are getting into the wrong hands.
https://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-facts/prescription-drugs
https://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/Prescription%20Drug%20Fact%20Card_2015_508_version.pdf
Hey Mason
I liked your blog and I agree with your statement about how many prescription drugs that are given to young people by doctors can be a silent killer. I also read somewhere that addiction to prescription drugs can lead to addiction to other drugs. For example, many people that are treated with morphine and get addicted tend to drift off of morphine and onto other drugs like heroin which is a nonpure form of morphine. So not only can prescription drugs lead to addiction of themselves they can also lead to people getting addicted to other drugs to fill the void left behind by the prescription drug.
~Avi
I think that you made some very good points. I think that it is easy for the government to enforce criminal penalties and to warn against illicit drugs but it is hard to crackdown on drugs that most people will take during their lifetime, and that are prescribed by doctors.
Very interesting! I heard a while back that some pain killers that are sold by pharmaceutical companies actually have opioids which can lead to abuse of heroin. Do you think that there are any prescription drugs that are like this?
Very interesting! Can’t wait to see what else you dig up.