Opioid addiction isn’t something new to the United States. With more than 200,000 new cases of opioid addiction each year, the federal government has been caught flat-footed in ways to help the American people affected. Opioid addiction is not something that discriminates around a person’s socioeconomic status or the color of their skin. Anyone can become addicted to opioids, which is why action needs to be taken against it. Many people who are addicted to opioids eventually go on to heroin because the opioid medications they have just simply are no longer giving them the relaxing feeling that they first enjoyed.

For many, their opioid addiction begins in a medicine cabinet. Many get addicted to the prescription given to them by their doctor for pain, whether it is oxycodone, fentanyl, or hydrocodone. These are common pain medications that are prescribed to a patient following a surgery to deal with pain management. These medications have a highly addictive quality to them that can cause the user to craze more and more. However, in the nineties, these medications were recommended to doctors to prescribe to their patients because the drug companies said that unlike previous opiate based medications, these medications didn’t have the addictive qualities that opiates became associated with. Once these prescription drugs no longer provide that same relief, users often go searching for something stronger, which leads most users to heroin.

Opioid addiction isn’t a new epidemic to the United States. However, the origin of the modern epidemic is linked to inner cities, where individuals looked for cheaper ways of pain relief than your typical prescription medications. This led to the creation of heroin, but it ended up being more addictive than other prescription medications. However, it went generally ignored by the public and it wasn’t viewed as nearly as big of an issue until it began to affect the middle and upper classes. For the middle and upper class, it started with kids taking medications like oxycodone out of their parent’s medication from their medicine cabinets and abusing that until the high was no longer satisfying to them. From there, they often find heroin as their next option because it is not only cheaper than most prescription medications, but it also gives them more of the high that they have begun to crave.

It is time that the United States stepped up and started helping people who become addicted to opiate-based medications. This change would begin by reducing the stigma around drug addiction. Now it I don’t in any way condone the use of illegal drugs, but we need to be there when people are ready to get help for their addiction. No one can conquer drug addiction on their own and the best way for anyone to beat drug addiction is to have a good support network of other people.

Opioids have a long history as a medication to treat pain in the body. However, these medications are highly addictive and it has created an epidemic of addiction, but society ostracizes these people. By ignoring these people who are addicted, we also ignore the problem of how dangerous these medications are to use. If we make opioid addiction more about the drug than the people who are addicted, then we can possibly move forward to eradicate this addiction.