Assignment: Legislation Comparison Grid and Testimony/Advocacy Statement

According to drugabuse.gov 2018, every day, 128 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total "economic burden" of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement. As a nurse with a background in corrections, I would like to talk about opioid crises knowing its importance and how it is gradually killing people in our streets.

The past few years has seen increased pressure on physicians and Nurse Practitioners to justify their administration of narcotic prescriptions. Working in a correctional center, I had physicians in the house who were victims of prescribing increased number of narcotics to patients causing death to some of the patients.

President Donald Trump in his quest to combat opioids made a declaration in 2017 that there is a public health emergency related to opioid use in America, he estimated that there were about 64,000 drug-related deaths in 2016 and three-quarters of those deaths were explicitly related to the use of opioids, Conway (2018).  Through his vigorous efforts to combat the illegal use of opioid, drug overdose deaths were reduced in the most recent 12-month reporting period compared to a year ago by an estimated 13 percent in New Hampshire, 20 percent in West Virginia, 11 percent in Iowa, 21 percent in Pennsylvania, and 22 percent in Ohio. (whitehouse.gov). Also, the ‘Support Act” was launched and this act restricted providers on prescribing narcotics. According to the Support Act, any clinician who can prescribe opioids has the responsibility of promoting the safe use of the medication. The Support Act also stated that providers may “only prescribe opioids if the expected benefits outweigh the risks for the patient and should consider non-opioid medications and physical therapies first”. President Trump also placed restrictions on the sources of illegal drug administration and prescription to make the drug less available to users. I would not change so much on the fight in curbing opioids since President Trump has almost everything needed to fight the opioid epidemic.

President Obama’s time according to The Washington Times in an article mentioned that during the Obama presidency, the Opioid crisis was the worst it had ever seen with number of death rates increasing to 71% since 2013, Dinan (2019). According to an article by Sheila Kaplan, March 29, 2016, The Obama administration unveiled a handful of measures intended to help curb the nation’s opioid epidemic including a plan to permit doctors to double the number of patients who may receive a medication used to combat drug addiction. Most patients who receive numerous narcotics ends up selling them in the streets and then in turn end up abusing drugs. Opioid abuse has caused the nation harm than good. I am of the opinion Mr. Obama paid more attention to the affordable care act instead of putting in more efforts and the needed resources in fighting the epidemic. If I am in such a situation in curbing opioids, I would have attempted to not only focus on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in which the president was so much concerned about but would have also tried to put in measures to curb opioids since Opioid addiction have made us see increase in our correctional centers and even in our mental health clinics.

President George W. Bush on February 12, 2002, in the East Room in the White House stated that a national drug control strategy was in place.  It is a plan that will lay out a comprehensive strategy for our nation.  We're putting the fight against drugs in the center of our national agenda but his time was more about protecting the nation using wars instead of our health care needs.

Bush’ time was what they refer to as the opioid crisis. President Bush was all about the cost of addiction rather than the cost of fixing the addiction. President Bush ere required that buying anything with pseudoephedrine, one has to provide identification and there was the implementation of a cap on the amount able to be purchased by an individual in an attempt to decrease the ability of people being able to make illegal drugs such as methamphetamines. If I was in the position, I would adopt Trumps strategy in battling opioids. I would try to decrease the amount any prescriber will be able to prescribe, and I will use alternative drugs which are not narcotics to combat pain instead of narcotics.

References:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-fighting-end-opioid-crisis-devastated-many-american-communities/

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis

Bush, G. (2002). President Bush announces drug control strategy. U.S. Department of State. 2001-2009.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/8451.htm

Conway, K. (2018). Ending Americas opioid crisis. Counselor to the White House. Whitehouse.gov/opioids/

Dinan, S. (2019). Obama administration bungled opioid crisis response. The Washington Times. Washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/1/Obama-administration-bungled-crisis-response/

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