Education
What Are Opioids? What Makes Them So Dangerous?
Opioids are substances/drugs that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief. Since they can also produce euphoric effects, they can be misused and can lead to overdose incidents and deaths.
Since 1999, the prescriptions for opioid pain relievers have quadrupled. With 78 Americans dying from an opioid overdose each day. Between 2007 and 2015, there have been 4,036 deaths related to prescription opioid overdose (source: VHD). And according to the APCD, 1,313 Virginia babies born between 2011 and 2014 with neonatal abstinence syndrome due to mother's drug use.
Reasons for Opioid Overdose?
1) Patient does not understand the direction for use.
2) Accidentally takes extra dose
3) Misuses a prescribed opioid for euphoric effect
4) Person overdoses on an illicit opioid drug such as heroin/Morphine
The Epidemic
The opioid epidemic refers to the growing number of deaths and hospitalizations from drugs overdose, including prescriptions and illicit drugs.
Since 2000, the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids has increased 200% according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, 61% of drug overdose deaths involved some type of opioid resulting in 28,647 total deaths.
The sad truth when we take a look at the Opioid Epidemic by the numbers:
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116 People died every day from opioid-related drug overdose
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11.5 million People misused prescription opioids
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42,249 People died from overdosing on opioids
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2.1 million People had an opioid use disorder
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17, 087 Deaths attributed to overdosing on commonly prescribed opioids
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19,413 Deaths attributed to overdosing on synthetic opioids other than methadone
(Source: Center4healthandsdc.org)
