Opioid
Opioids can bring threatening effects to your life when misused
The use of some drugs like opioids can affect other parts of the brain. For example, opioids are able to affect the brain stem. The brain stem is what controls the basic functions of your body, allowing you to live. When you overdose on opioid it can cause you to die because this part of the brain is not properly carrying out the activity of heart rate, breathing, and sleeping.
The opioid epidemic is an outbreak of opioid addiction and overdose that has been present in the united states for over 20 years and the problem is only getting worse. It was not until October of 2017 that the United States declared it to be a public health crisis.
Opioid is often prescribed to patients by doctors to treat pain. This is because opioid has the ability to bind receptors in the nervous system (brain and spine) to block out the pain. However, the blockage of pain can cause the feeling of euphoria, which can become addicting leading to the misuse of this drug. Aside from the feeling of euphoria, patients also have the need to block pain. As with other drugs, their body develops a tolerance to it, requiring them to take higher dosages for them to maintain the same strength. This combination often leads to the dependency and dangerous addiction of this drug.
Purdue Pharma is a name you might be familiar with as they have been popping up in the news quite often over the past few years. They introduced OxyContin as a pain reliever back in 1995, a a “gentler and less-addictive opioid pill.” However, over the next few years doctors would prescribe this pill and other opioids to their patients, increasing the number of people who develop this addiction. There have been several lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies, but despite that opioid is still being heavily prescribed leading to even more adicts and deaths.