Prescription medications are fast becoming an epidemic among American teenagers, and unsuspecting adults. The drugs have the lure of legitimacy because they are legal and can be obtained from a medical doctor. The user may innocently begin his addiction by taking the pills as prescribed, or just on the weekends to relax, and soon find out to his dismay that he can't function without them.
The vast majority of individuals are highly susceptible to becoming targets because unlike crack cocaine, pills do not have the negative connotation that goes along with its use, but they have more in common with crack than people like to admit. Both are highly addictive, and deadly. Emergency room visits are on the rise, generally because of their illicit use. These medications, despite their scary side effects, do provide much needed relief to the patients who require them.
Opiates such as oxy-contin, morphine, fentanyl, and even methadone are used so that a patient who suffers from chronic pain can function more normally. Unfortunately they are also the drug of choice of addicts. Even though these analgesics require a doctors prescription, there are plenty of nefarious physicians who will write anyone a script. You don't even need to have anything wrong with you, the only requirement is that you pay their lofty fees and pay in cash. In addition to this being profitable for the doctors it is also an advantageous business to drug dealers. Those who cannot afford to pay for the doctors visit and prescription costs choose to buy in smaller quantities at a more reasonable rate. Dealers take advantage of this through doctor shopping, or sending many different people to different doctors many times in the same week. Resulting in an abundance of product.
Someone who detoxes off of the medication experiences withdrawals comparable to that of heroin. They suffer extreme pain,insomnia, profuse sweating and chills. That is only the beginning, the real work begins when the addict tries to come to terms with living life without drugs. Then tries to discover and face what led them there in the first place.
The cost of these vices should not be measured in monetary value, but in the high cost of mental, and physical consequences. The destruction of families alone is immeasurable. There need to be tougher laws concerning the quacks prescribing unnecessary medications. In the mean time if you find yourself or someone you love addicted to drugs contact your local narcotics anonymous chapter. There are caring people out there who know what your going through.
