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The Opioid Crisis

The opioid abuse crisis has been devastating American communities for nearly two decades. Although opioids date back thousands of years, there’s been an upswing in use and abuse, specifically in America and Iran.

Many people speculate how opioids became a U.S. epidemic. According to DrugRehab.com, in the 1990s, American medical providers began aggressively prescribing drugs with opiates as a way to treat pain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited that sales of prescription opioids in the U.S. nearly quadrupled between 1999 and 2014.

The use of opioids as an anesthesia can be traced back to Neolithic and ancient times. According to Opium.com, these substances were used as pain relievers in ancient Egyptian times. The Indians and Romans also used opium during surgical procedures.

To clarify, opium is the all-natural sap that emerges from the poppy plant. All opiate drugs including heroin, morphine, and prescription painkillers, are derived from it.

DrugAbuse.gov defines opioids as heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and pain relievers such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, and methadone (sold under the brand name of Dolophine). Codeine and morphine are also considered opioids. These are all legal via a medical prescription.

Heroin is also made from the resin of poppy plants. According to DrugFreeWorld.org, sap-like opium is removed from the pod of the poppy flower. It’s then refined to make morphine and further refined into heroin. First manufactured in 1898 by Bayer pharmaceutical, it was marketed as a treatment for tuberculosis and a remedy for morphine addiction.

Beyond providing pain relief, with the exclusion of methadone, opioids create a sense of euphoria. Opium.com references opium’s recreational use throughout Chinese history (from the 15th through the 17th centuries). The substance also sparked the Opium Wars, which arose from China’s attempt to suppress the trade of opium.

Britain’s Romantic era, a growth period for literature and poetry, witnessed the increased use of opium. Many renowned authors of that period have been linked with the drug, specifically Charles Dickens and John Keats.

Due to the sense of euphoria that these drugs create, they’re often taken in other ways than prescribed. Misuse and abuse have claimed countless American lives spanning a wide variety of demographics from college students to professionals, and blue-collar workers to celebrities.

According to the CDC, in 2015, those ages 45 to 54 had the highest death rate from overdose at 30 deaths per 100,000. The age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths among non-Hispanic, white Americans was nearly 3.5 times the rate it was in 1999.

August 31, 2017, marks International Overdose Awareness Day. Activists around the globe are doing their share to create awareness, educate, and combat this issue. For more reading on the topic, explore Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater; Charles Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

By Regina Molaro