Scott Stevens
Alcohologist.com, USA
Title: Look what dragged the cat in: The rise of the opioid crisis
Biography
Biography: Scott Stevens
Abstract
The decade of the 2010's shelled hospitals and first responders with an explosion of opioid-related illness, injury and death. Preventable drug overdoses tallied 54,793 lives lost in 2016-an increase of 391% since 1999. Accidental drug overdose deaths increased 327% over the same period. The majority of OD deaths (38,000) involve opioids. The drug category most frequently involved in opioid overdoses and growing at the fastest pace includes Fentanyl, Fentanyl analogs and Tramadol. The Fentanyl category of opioids accounted for nearly half of opioid-related deaths. The abuse of drugs, regardless of classification, begins with the permissiveness granted the world's most lethal drug and third-leading cause of all preventable deaths: Alcohol. It's a straight line. Nearly every non-Muslim civilization on this rock has embraced alcohol. As a result, ours is largely a numbing planet, especially in the sedation-happy Americas. This is the root. This is the seed of the opium trade that has gone un stemmed since prehistory. There is legit medical use for opium derivatives: What has driven growth is demand-not by the sick but by people who cannot get the mind alteration they desire through alcohol use alone. Alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink the first drink for the same reason: To relieve a stress. In the US, which has a laissez faire agenda towards alcohol since its prohibition failure, the culture embraces a drinking lifestyle. Western culture normalizes alcohol use. In other words, we normalize drug use. What you ignore, you permit. What you permit, you condone. Opioid abuse happens when a person can't get where they want to get with alcohol. The opioid crisis wasn't created by doctors overprescribing, manufacturers wooing doctors, China shipping heroin and cheaper Fentanyl via cartels and postal mail. Drinking, especially binge drinking is the pandemic that dragged in the opioid epidemic. Culture condones the buzz, the sedation. We created this monster on our own.