Prescription Opioids: A Battle Yet To Be Conquered

While illegal drugs will surely lead to addiction, there are actually legal drugs that when taken in huge amounts and in much frequency, can also lead to addiction that already result more than 47,000 overdose deaths in 2014 in the U.S. According to the press release sent by DrugAbuse.com to Nature World News, most of the U.S. citizens consume an estimated 80 percent of global opioid supply should. This is getting worse as the years will pass, as it is expected to increase in the coming years. That is why it is important to know and understand on how alarming the can the opioid addiction will be.

The site surveyed 2,000 participants regarding their experiences in using opioids from how they are prescribed, for what cause they are using it, and on why they are actually using it. Here are the survey results and their alarming numbers and figures.

During the 1990s, pain specialists in America prescribed opioids to the patients with untreated pain. Because of this, many consumer groups and professionals pushed this idea to manage pain. Prescription painkillers become the go-to of many patients to manage their pain. Nowadays, according to the survey, there are 38 percent of the patients who took prescription painkillers for their chronic pain, and in that bracket, most of them are using it for more than a year--- which should not be the case to begin with, because ideally, painkillers should only last for few days.

There are 45 percent of the respondents that say that their primary care physicians prescribed them the opioids as an answer to their pain. For the remaining chunk, 12 percent were prescribed medication by a dentist, 5 percent were prescribed through emergency room care, and 1 percent was prescribed by a psychiatrist.

Despite of 38 percent of the respondents agreeing that their doctors were explaining to them the side effects of opioids during the time of prescribing, there are still 26 percent that said that they disagree. It is important for the doctors to be the "gatekeepers" where they should just prescribed opioids depending on the possible effects on each patient and to monitor their use-not just merely giving it off like it is a drill.

Educating people about opioids is a must. Though these prescription painkillers aren't as illegal as heroin, it important to note that too much of something can still lead to addiction ---and even untimely, overdosed-case of death.