Who is Responsible for Increased Opioid Crisis in America?

Opioid epidermis or crises is defined as rapid increase of using opioid drugs. The opioid drugs can be prescript or not. Those responsible with prescribing usage of these painkillers are pharmaceutical man and woman. As a result of increased use and addiction of these opioid drugs, have raised questions on who should be responsible for its crisis. Many think that pharmacists are the one to be blamed and others argue that the blame lies to the consumers. As a result of abuse of painkillers most consumers have not been following doctors prescriptions on drug usage resulting to death of individuals. Concurrent use of painkillers has resulted to addiction in a manner that patients cannot do without them. Opioid abuse is rampant in most states where paramedics are spending a lot of time addressing overdose cases and increased cases of death resulting from the same. In a survey conducted in 2012 disclosed that pharmaceuticals were able to supply prescribe opioid drugs to every man, woman and children with at least sixty eight pills each. Twenty percent of the total state population was discovered opioid prescribed. This increased overdose deaths among the citizens. The thesis here is who is responsible for this crises? Attorney generals, advocates lawyers and judges have tried to find out through the courts whether pharmaceuticals can be legally held accountable and pay back for the crises. Although there have been good precedent, especially a suit that was filed by state against tobacco industry in 1998 which compelled the industry to take charge for all treatments relating to smoking diseases. The industry was also forced to fund all ad campaign against use of tobacco substances and public health facilities. Similarly attorney general of Ohio's state and many other civilians have filed cases against all pharmacies. (Sam Quinones, 21). According to G. Jean Kinney, they allege that these pharmaceutical companies has been spending millions of cash in advertising and marketing these opioid drugs showing that they had no adverse effect to the consumer by exaggerating their benefits. They were also alleged of colluding with doctors to affect the influence their opinion of safety of opioid drugs. There were also similar case from four counties of new yoke alleging the distributors and pharmacists in a tribunal court of opioid epidermis. Actually it is very clear that more legal minds are now focusing on how to make these huge bills true before the court. Although there are some significant evidence that pharmaceuticals have contributed knowingly to these crises. Investigation done on drug maker who advertised for oxycontin consumption showed that it could not relieve pain for the said twelve hours' time as marketed. This resulted to consumers withdrawing and then caused addiction. Situations for these case differed completely from the one on tobacco. (Mohammad Akikur, p12), states that it was found that it was very difficult to claim that pharmaceuticals were responsible for the opioid crises as alleged. Individual plaintiffs who have sues these companies have not succeeded completely. Law courts have argued that those affected are largely responsible for their addictions. Court continued to point out that death resulting from overdose are caused by disobedience of consumer to doctors prescriptions. The court also added that most of the pills causing deaths are obtained by consumers directly from black market. Consumers have also been disregarding doctor's prescription leading to overdose or under dose resulting to opioid crises. It was very clear that tobacco lawsuit was successful because sickness or illness resulted due to wrong instructions from tobacco companies to their immediate consumers but with opioid crises is totally different in that consumers are not taking pills as directed and so it was totally difficult to blame all pharmaceutical companies for that alleged misuse. It was also pointed out that the aggressive marketing undertaken by pharmaceutical companies was targeting doctors but not the customer. This made it hard to link deaths of consumers to marketing that did not target them. All the companies involved cited that they do all what they can to deter consumers from misusing these pills. They also criticized patients for using these painkillers to control chronic pain. They also argued that opioid crises could be dealt with through a collaborative way. (Johann Hari P.12). There are also many parties who are responsible for opioid epidermis it was noted. Distributor and customers could play a critical role in ensuring that opioid crises are regulated and minimized. The best way to deal with this opioid crises can be control effectively by the state through adopting monitoring doctor's prescriptions of opioid drugs and preventing shopping of unprescripted drugs. The state should also use constitutional mandate to legislate laws which will hold culprits responsible for misuse of opioid drugs. It has fully come out that although pharmaceuticals plays crucial roles in opioid crises, they can't not be blamed for the crises.

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