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Minimizing Prescription Drug Abuse in Oklahoma
Introduction
Substance abuse is, unfortunately, quite a common phenomenon in the 21st-century reality (Holmes 17). While, for the most part, drugs are rather hard to obtain, with prescribed drug abuse, however, the situation becomes more complicated, since the doctor provides the patient with open access to the drug. As a result, over the past few years, the rates of prescription drug abuse in Oklahoma have grown impressively. Since limiting the patients access to prescription drugs is ethically inadmissible, the issue must be addressed by raising awareness via modern media, improving the information management process in healthcare centers and providing the patients with dependence on drugs with appropriate treatment.
Raising Awareness
While the threats of illegal substances or prescription drug abuse are a common knowledge, a range of people seems to take the problem for granted, therefore, triggering its escalation. The rates of awareness concerning the threat of prescribed drug abuse among the residents of Oklahoma are very upsetting; thus, people must know the basics about the issue. Among the key facts, the information concerning the factors causing prescribed drug abuse, the effects that it has on patients, the symptoms that are characteristic of drug abuse, the means to detect drug abuse in patients, and the ways to address the problem, should be listed. To be more exact, the blog and social network posts, booklets, and other sources of the specified information must be made available to the residents of Oklahoma. With the integration of both traditional and modern media into the process of raising awareness among the citizens, an impressive success can be achieved within a relatively short amount of time (Zosel, Bartelson, Bailey, Lowenstein and Dart 203).
To help the people, who suffer from addiction to prescribed drugs, it will also be necessary to create centers for medical help to such patients, as well as offer the necessary information for contacting the specialists (i.e., e-mails, phone numbers, addresses, etc.). The faster the information is made available to the target population, the better.
Education
As it has been stressed above, it is crucial to use the existing media sources to provide people with information concerning the significance of the issue, as well as the methods of handling it. It should be born in mind, though, that the issue of prescribed drug abuse should also be conveyed with the help of PSAs on television. By integrating both modern media and the traditional one, one can achieve impressive success in teaching people the basic information about the course of actions to be undertaken.
Prevention
It could be argued that the awareness campaign described above can be viewed as a part of the prevention procedure. However, apart from warning people of the threats of drug abuse, healthcare specialists must also make the chance for the patient to abuse the prescribed drugs as little as possible. Also, it will be reasonable to keep in mind that different types of prevention must be aimed at different target groups. For example, in the case of teenage prescription drug abuse, creating an organization, which will promote a healthy lifestyle and teach the Oklahoma youth about the PDA threats, seems quite a legitimate idea.
Treatment
The treatment strategy must be designed with just as much caution as the prevention methods. At this point, it is necessary to stress that prescription drugs do not necessarily trigger physical dependence; opiates, which are traditionally mentioned as the ones that cause chemical dependence, make only a comparatively small part of the prescribed drugs, which the Oklahoma patients abuse. Therefore, two types of treatment must be provided, i.e., the one that addresses the chemical dependence on a specific drug, and the one that helps the patient get rid of the psychological dependence on a certain type of medicine. In other words, pharmacological and behavioral treatments must be offered to the patients (National Institute on Drug Abuse para. 12).
When administering the pharmacological treatments to the patients, the healthcare specialists must make sure that these treatments counter the effects, which a specific drug has had on the patients nervous system. Also, the treatment provided must reduce the withdrawal symptoms and help the patient battle with their drug cravings. Because of the instant effect, which pharmacological treatment has on a patient, one may assume that the psychological component of the procedure is redundant. This is a popular and rather harmful misconception, since the pharmacological treatment, though providing fast relief, does not help the patient recognize the necessity to stop abusing drugs. Quite on the contrary, assuming that the treatment process is vast and efficient, the patient may have recidivism of prescribed drug abuse. Therefore, the behavioral aspect of the procedure is also crucial to the treatment results. It is essential that the Oklahoma patients, who suffer from dependence on prescription drugs, should learn to function without drugs; particularly, the patients must receive individual counseling, preferably with the support of their family members, friend or relatives.
Conclusion
Because of the lack of awareness concerning prescribed drug abuse and its threats among the residents of Oklahoma, a sharp decline in health rates can be observed. Therefore, it can be suggested that to minimize prescribed drug abuse in Oklahoma. It will be necessary to increase awareness by incorporating modern and traditional media. Also, several organizations promoting a healthy and drug-free lifestyle should be created in the state.
Works Cited
Holmes, David. Prescription Drug Addiction: The Treatment Challenge. The Lancet 279.9810 (2012), 1718. Print.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. Treating Prescription Drug Addiction. NIH. 2011.
Zosel, Amy, Becki Bucher Bartelson, Elise Bailey, Steven Lowenstein and Rick Dart. Characterization of Adolescent Prescription Drug Abuse and Misuse Using the Researched Abuse Diversion and Addiction-Related Surveillance (RADARS®) System. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 52.2 (2014), 196204. Print.
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