Name: Andrew A.

Current Event Posting Number: 3

Topic: Health

Title of Article: Pain and Pain Medication Abuse: Two Epidemics in Tension

Author: Steve Heilig

Publication Name: Huffington Post

Publication Date: 4/12/2012

Length of Article: 513 words


           There is currently a pandemic of abuse of pain medications, but at the same time most pain is under medicated. How can this happen? Doctors attempt to prescribe pain medications as little as possible, but there is no practical sure fire test to determine whether or not someone is under serious pain. It is extremely easy for someone to fake pain, and it is a common practice for addicts. Currently doctors are attempting to implement a system to allow them to track who has been prescribed which medications, and to track how much they have been prescribed. It is called 'CURES', but unfortunetly it is underfunded and unutilized by doctors who do not wish to spend the extra time filling up data on their patients. This is problematic because currently a fatal overdose on pain medications occur once every 19 minutes in this country. This is a bigger problem than heroin and cocaine combined, but I believe because the people who overdose are not usually 'hard' criminals, the issue is overlooked. Politicians look good for being 'tough' on crime, which has led to the overflowing of our prisons and imprisonment of nonviolent people. This would not be important enough to earn them votes, and as such they ignore it. While politicians wait the system continues deteriorating, and more people die or are sent to the emergency office 35 people sent for every 1 who dies. Most who leave the emergency office are then in pain or addicted, which leads to them needing more drugs, creating a vicious cycle. The drugs used to treat pain while not as powerful as those such as heroin can lead to the same debilitating effects quickly enough, and it is easy for anyone to become addicted to them after a painful accident.
        In conclusion we must learn to combat the issue and stigma of pain killers in society, and find out a better way to ensure people have only the drugs they need and no more.