"America is being poisoned with fentanyl and we don't even know it," from the ABC Special Poisoned. There is a lot to unwrap pertaining to the American opioid epidemic, and to get a better understanding I recommend watching either shows or both. If you watch both, watch Dopesick first and then watch Poisoned on ABC. You can better gauge the progression of this American epidemic by watching those shows in that order.
My life has been personally affected by the opioid epidemic, and I'm sure many of your lives have been too. Living with addiction causes a person's life to spiral out of control and affects everyone in the addict's path. My addiction caused me to have suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life and that's when I finally knew I needed help. Reaching recovery was not easy, and I will carry the pains of addiction with me for the rest of my life. Thank God that we do recover though. Besides myself and my own family, I know people who have died due to this. Good people, moms, wives, brothers, children are those affected by the Opioid crisis, and my hope is to help end the epidemic.
According to Dopesick, the crisis began with greedy corporations seeking higher profits and doing so by 'individualizing the dose' and creating a 160mg Oxy to name a couple of things. Both actions were hazardous to the patient's health and well-being and led to rampant addiction in small town USA. We eventually reigned in the drug makers, but have run into a new problem since the addiction is still there. The new problem is the rise of heroin and fentanyl use across America. These illegal drugs are much harder to regulate. I don't believe just cutting off the supply will end the epidemic because humans trade one addiction for another until they reach recovery. I also don't believe in throwing somebody in jail for having these substances and using them is an answer either.
Since just throwing addicts in jail makes things worse, what action(s) does society need to take to stop the problem, this American Opioid epidemic?
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