Research Paper Example on Drug Overdose
Drug addiction is more than addiction it is a disease that needs non-stop and thorough treatment. Drugs have the ability to take over your body not only mentally but physically. The most dangerous thing about them is the addiction it comes with. If you just try a drug one time, there is a very likely chance that it will turn into a heavy addiction that can lead to so much more. Drugs are becoming so much easier to get, which will lead to many more deaths via overdoses or complications from the drugs. Drug addiction is a growing epidemic that is becoming increasingly common in today’s world.
To begin drug overdoses are responsible for about 96,000 deaths per year in the United States (Drug Overdose Death Rates, 2021). That equates to around 3 percent of all deaths in the U.S. These numbers are shocking and nothing that I expected. Though, I feel the craziest statistic is that there are about one million drug overdoses that have caused death since 1999. These death rates from overdose are rising very quickly as the death rate has gone up 29.6% in America since 2020. These drugs that are causing all this are becoming increasingly easier to get as more and more people are dying from an overdose. To add, more and more fentanyl-laced drugs are hitting the streets causing more overdoses. You see more drug overdoses in more ran down but big cities but truly it happens all over the country because of how accessible these drugs are to get. One of the easiest ways to get these drugs is through a pharmacy and you can need this drug to help better yourself and end up becoming addicted to them. Once you become addicted to them it is very hard to stop but the only way to stop the addiction is very extensive therapy.
One of the main reasons for overdoses is the use of opioids. Opioids can be given for pharmaceutical reasons or can be found by sellers on the streets. Opioids are some of the most dangerous drugs found in the world and can be found to be very addictive. In 2017 alone opioid drug overdoses directly took the lives of about 47,500 people (Bascou, 2). The article then goes into saying “Since the Covid-19 pandemic, this devastating trend has accelerated exponentially, with opioid-related overdose deaths recorded in the 12 months leading up to April 2021 reported as 75,673, a staggering increase of 28.5% compared to the previous 12 month time interval.” This meant that with more time to do whatever, people began going to try or continue these drugs and form an addiction. When they had formed this addiction all they could do is to continue feeding this addiction as many therapy places had been forced to stay closed during this pandemic. So with no help available and a bad addiction lingering what good can come from this situation. I feel the only things that could happen from this situation are an overdose or an absolute miracle of stopping this addiction. That's why the death rate from overdoses had raised exponentially higher during this time. The thing is these overdoses have been getting continually worse as time goes on and something that might be causing this to be happening is that the drugs are continually getting easier to get. There might be a way to stop this on the street side of things but from a medicinal side of things, people need it to be better than themselves so it will be much harder to stop it from that side of things.
Another main reason for a lot of drug use and overdoses is decent to where they are from and living. Many areas that are either rural or very poverty-stricken are known to have higher drug use. Statistics from Americianaddictioncenters.org show that Ohama, Nebraska has some of the highest percentages of drug use in the country. It shows that Ohama ranks first in the use of marijuana and meth. Meth is known to be one of the most dangerous and addictive drugs found in the world and with the highest percentage of use, it makes me seem to believe they have a higher death count from overdoses are much higher than the average city. Another city with a very high percentage of drug use in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix is the home city of Arizona State University which is known to be one of the biggest party schools in America. With all these parties comes a lot of drugs and alcohol, mixing the two is very dangerous and causes a very high percentage of overdoses. Phoenix is also known to have a lot of bad areas within the city and within bad parts of the city usually comes higher use of drugs. To add a 2015 Princeton study by Angus Deaton and Anne Case said there was “A rise in the mortality rate between 1999 and 2013 among middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women, due largely to drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.” This was found in the article “Domestic Poverty” written by Kay Nolan. This again proves that poverty-stricken areas have higher use of drug rates which will eventually lead to more overdoses in these areas. This article talks a lot about if these areas had a stricter work mandate the poverty would likely push the poverty rate down. According to a study performed by Christopher J. Ruhm, a University of Virginia professor of public policy and economics shows “Counties experiencing relative economic decline did experience higher growth in drug mortality than those with more robust growth, … the relationship is weak and mostly explained by confounding factors.” This again just proves this point as studies have been performed to prove that more poverty in cities increases the use of drugs. This is why the article written by Kay Nolan about hoping to make a stricter work mandate in the poverty-stricken areas is parallel to this essay about drug use and drug overdoses.
Lastly, a huge reason for drug overdoses is either the formation of addiction or simply something going wrong while just trying it. As we know these most drugs, especially the drugs that cause most overdoses are very addictive. So if you form an addiction to these types of drugs, you’re going to want to keep taking these more which creates a very high chance of an overdose. Another reason is taking something laced which is becoming much more popular as time goes on. More and more people are taking drugs that they think are perfectly fine but end up being laced with fentanyl which is 100 more times potent than heroin. The article “Opioid Crisis: Can the tide be reversed?” written by Bara Vaida talks about a 16-year-old boy named Sammy Berman Chapman who accidentally took fentanyl-laced pills. According to the article, Berman was bored after a year of sitting in the house cause of the pandemic and ended up finding someone selling drugs on Snapchat. The article then said “Chapman slipped unnoticed out of his Santa Monica, Calif., home and met a drug dealer. He thought he was buying Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, according to his parents.” A few days later Berman talked to his parents about an internship and how he was hungry, then that he was going to his room to play video games. About an hour later his parents had walked into his room and found him lying dead on the floor, he had taken the Xanax which had ended up being laced with fentanyl. This is truly one of the saddest stories I have ever seen and it was just a young teenager who was just trying something out which is something that isn’t usually deadly. This ended up being one of the most dangerous drugs in the entire world and was his last moment on this planet. The worst part is this stuff happens all around the world all the time and it is starting to become more and more common. This is another reason why you can’t trust drugs off the street as it has a much higher chance to be laced with something very dangerous over a prescription. Though forming an addiction from a prescription of these types of pills isn’t the most uncommon thing, you would rather take the chance of a prescription over a drug bought off the street.
In conclusion, drug overdoses can come from addiction or just even trying it one time. They are very unpredictable and can strike at one time. The number of drug overdoses is rising every year and we have to figure out a way to stop this. Many poverty-stricken areas are seeing the worst of this happen to the ones closest to them. The addiction that comes with these drugs is one of the hardest things to ever see and the only real way is very thorough therapy which could be a way to stop this from happening. Overall the usage and death rate from drugs is becoming a real problem in today's world and we need a way to stop it or else the numbers will continue to rise.
