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Pros And Cons Of Opioid Epidemic

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Recent reforms can curb the opioid epidemic. Yes, health care professionals have realized the complex problem and they now understand the problem and what needs to be done. According to CQ Researcher, “Experts see some progress in the fight against opioid painkiller abuse. After peaking in 2012, the number of prescriptions written for opioids declined 12 percent between 2013 and 2015, according to IMS Health, a market research company. Symphony Health Solutions, a data company that studies the pharmaceutical industry, found an 18 percent drop in that period.”
One reason there is potential to curb the epidemic is a change in the way doctors think. The article mentioned in the 1990’s doctors thought that people should never have pain. It is possible that could have kick started the opioid drug crisis. Here is …show more content…

The government is also supporting the movement. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act lets the National Institutes of Health speed up research on developing non-opioid painkillers. The Act also creates programs that give money to states for their addiction treatment. One program is medication-assisted treatment. They prescribe opioids that dull the addiction craving but don 't really produce a high, the medications are called methadone or buprenorphine.
Finally, the article asks “Should opioids be used to treat addiction?” That is definitely not the way to go about it. If a person had an addiction to smoking, would one treat it by telling them to just go smoke a different type of cigarette? No, that’s why doctors should treat opioid addiction by other therapy that is not addictive
Overall the opioid drug problem is beginning to get under control. Researchers and doctors are beginning to understand more and more about different treatment plans, and how to deal with the opioid addiction problem. The problem is nowhere close to being solved but, neither is smoking. There will probably always be a problem, but hopefully there will be less

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