Who Is To Blame For Non-medical Use of Prescription Meds?

by AdamS on September 30, 2012

It is fairly well known that our nation has a huge problem with the flippant use and distribution of addictive pain medications. The number of people with percocet addictions and other self-medicating drugs has increased significantly in the past decade. Just as the problem of illegal drug abuse has been met by law enforcement with disciplinary penalties for nonviolent drug offender, the prescription drug pandemic has motivated people to start pointing fingers. Who is to blame? Who can be held accountable for permitting the nonmedical use of painkillers? This is an issue because it is among the most common forms of drug abuse in America.

Blame The Addict

First of all, the person that is addicted gets blamed for having a weak moral character, and for making the decision to continue using a substance that is destroying their lives and the lives of their loved ones. This point can be made moot because of the existing research which established that addiction is a persistent disease just like cancer and heart disease. The chronic nature of addiction creates imbalances in the brain that make quitting very difficult. Research shows that low morality or character flaws are the cause of addiction.

Blame The Drugs

Guilt is also being placed on the medications themselves, as well as the pharmaceutical companies that produce them. Prescription medications are not entirely bad, in fact for the most part, they can be extremily good for people that suffer with severe pain and health problems. However, along with those benefits is the threat of side effects. No matter which way the prescription drug epidemic is approached, there will need to be a feats taken by everyone involved to promote healthy use. If drugs are prescribed appropriately and taken as the prescription outlines, then there is little chance that an addiction will be created.

Blame The Doctors

If it’s not the addicts or the drugs, then only the doctors are left to blame. While they are approached with demands from individuals that have chronic pain and health issues, people accuse doctors from various fields of prescribing medications flippantly and in higher amounts than is needed. However, as a study done by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health tells us, close to 70 percent of people that are addicted to prescription medications acquire them through friends or family members. Excluding the very few doctors that do illegally distribute the drugs, for the most part doctors take actions to keep an eye on patients that may not be being honest about their condition, and prescribe medications lawfully.

 

The prescription drug pandemic is very intricate in a way that there are multiple facets that contribute to it. We should ask whether or not blame placing is the best way to begin a plan of attack against the villain that is addiction. Instead of trying to point the finger, it would be wise to educate people about the dangers of self-medication with drugs that are addictive. If you are struggling with a prescription drug addiction you can find helpful vicodin treatment at https://www.thewatershed.com/resource/vicodin-treatment/.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: