Summary: As prescription opiate pills become harder to obtain, more users are turning to artificial or street produced opiates. Recently, fentanyl, a drug 50 to 100 times as powerful than morphine, has entered the U.S, marked by a rise in overdoses. Fentanyl usually is shipped from China and enters the U.S. through the postal service. In recent years, intake of packages into the U.S. has increased greatly and the 498 million packages containing fentanyl seized by the DEA in 2017 was a minor percentage of the drug passing into the country.
Opinion: As the amount of drugs shipped through the mail grow, security to check for the drugs can only prevent so much from entering the U.S. In my opinion the solution to the overdose problem lies in education and acceptance of addiction as a true problem. Educating addicts about the power of the artificial or substitute opiates. Additionally tools such as test kits and clean needles could help prevent spread of diseases or possible overdoses.
Questions:
1. What action should the United States take limit the amount of these drug entering the country?
2. Should the opiate crisis in the U.S. be a priority currently?
Article Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43146286
2 comments:
Like you said, education about the dangers of opiates and contaminated needles,etc. would probably bring more awareness to people, and hopefully reduce the "taste"(one of our econ terms) they have towards buying the product, ultimately leading to a decrease in demand. However, education complemented with security checks for drugs sent through postal mail, will be more effective at stopping this crisis in my opinion. Security checks may be hard and not be 100 percent effective, but this does not mean that they should stop drug security checks all together. Furthermore, I think the medical community should do something about this issue by making sure that they prescribe opiates in such a way that will not induce addiction. This way, even after the patient's prescription is over, he won't feel the need to seek out artificial, dangerous drugs.
Personally, I think the opioid addiction problem lies in both the lack of government regulations and enforcement of laws, and the people who actually decide to take these fatal drugs. There are entire towns that are being taken over by the opioid crisis, and the government has done little to try to help them out. But at the same time, I think that a lot of the blame lies with the people who pretty much give up everything they have and their entire future just to pay for and use these drugs. I think that in drug addiction, people need to be accountable for themselves and actually try to live their lives instead of ruining them out of sadness and depression. I understand that a lot of these addicts come from very troubled backgrounds and many of them are very poor, but it comes to the point where people need to value themselves and not degrade themselves to not giving a crap about their lives and ruining them.
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