Persuasive Blog Post

By Wil McCabe

As discussed in previous blogs, most heroin addiction begins with prescription painkillers. The average story starts off with a healthy member of society having some form of injury and being prescribed an opiate painkiller such as oxycodone. This brings temporary relief and with time, the person finds himself enjoying these pills a little bit too much. When the prescription ends, they start asking family or friends. Eventually, a tolerance builds up and they need more to avoid the extreme discomfort that comes from withdrawal. People say there’s nothing more painful in this world than a drug withdrawal. It often immobilizes muscles and from the second a person wakes up until the second they go to sleep, all they can think about is getting a fix. As time progresses, the user no longer has a source for pills or the money to afford them and heroin is the next best option. It is much cheaper, has a more intense effect and much easier to find on the street. 

Painkillers act by attaching specific proteins to “opiate receptors” which are found in the brain, spinal cord and gastrointestinal tract which lessen the perception of pain while also producing a sense of well-being via extra release of dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical found in the brain that makes you feel good and is released through exercise or problem solving.  Although the amount released in your brain from pills is not natural, in fact when you no longer are on pills your brain has much less dopamine than it is used to, resulting in overwhelming unhappiness. As time goes on, the body builds up a tolerance (when a person no longer responds to a drug as strongly as they did at first). This means that a higher dose is needed to achieve the same effect. Once a tolerance builds up, the user will have gone from taking pills for a “good time” to taking pills just to survive.

It is estimated that 2.1 million people in the United States suffer from substance abuse related to opioid prescription pain relievers.  According to drugabuse.gov, death certificates list opioid analgesic poisoning as a cause of death more commonly than heroin or cocaine. In 2010, there were a reported 13,652 unintentional deaths from opioid pain relieves, which is almost 83% of unintentional deaths from all prescription drugs. If these negative consequences are not enough to persuade you, prescription opioid abuse is also a disaster in economic terms.  72.5 billion dollars in annual health care costs are related to non-medical use of opioid pain relievers. 

In my opinion, opioid prescription should be the last resort of a doctor in trying to manage a patient’s pain. In today’s society, people tend to think that if it came from a doctor it is safe but in reality, pharmaceutical companies make extreme amounts of money via patients becoming addicted to their products. Unless a person literally can’t go about his or her life, because of extreme pain, a person should avoid opioids at all costs.