Significant Events in the History of Substance use and misuse
Johnnie Sykes
Walden University
SOCW-6103-4:
September 7, 2025
Dr. Christina Perkins, DSW, LCSW
Describe the event, what led to it, and how it has affected or continues to affect people
with substance use disorders.
Beginning in the middle of the 1990s, the opioid crisis in the US has persisted in a number
of overlapping waves. The Congressional Budget Office outlines the crisis's consequences and
development, contributing factors, laws passed to address it, and the impact of the coronavirus
pandemic on the crisis in this report (The Opioid Crisis and Recent Federal Policy Responses,
2022). The consequences of the opioid crisis have been significant. Since 2000, overdoses
involving opioids have claimed the lives of over 500,000 people in the US. During the pandemic,
opioid-related overdose deaths were very common, being among the top causes of death in
2020. Since 2014, the United States has seen a decrease in life expectancy, which has been
exacerbated by those deaths. The prevalence of associated diseases has also gone up as a result
of the opioid crisis. Hepatitis C and HIV have spread more widely as a result of opioid injections,
and more babies are going through withdrawal symptoms as a result of their mothers' opiate
abuse (The Opioid Crisis and Recent Federal Policy Responses, 2022). An increase in heroin-
related fatalities was the crisis. This resulted from a crackdown on access to prescription
opioids, which drove people with opioid use disorder to use more affordable, easily accessible,
and frequently more harmful illegal narcotics like heroin.
Explain how treatment for the substance(s) implicated in the event has changed over time.
Integrated, evidence-based care has replaced segregated, criminalized approaches to
treating substance use disorders. Comprehensive techniques that incorporate counseling,
recovery support, and medication (particularly for opioid addiction) have replaced models that
only focused on abstinence. Substance abuse was historically viewed as a social or criminal
problem rather than a health one, which resulted in few options and inadequate access to care.
Recent developments include new pharmacological and psychological strategies, such as the
promising new drug for cannabis use disorder, as well as the creation of drugs for opioid,
nicotine, and alcohol use disorders.
Discuss the ways in which the event has affected how social workers can work with
clients with substance use disorders. Reflect on how societal attitudes and norms
connected to this event are influencing practice today.
Moving away from a stigmatizing, "War on Drugs" perspective and toward a more holistic,
integrated, trauma-informed, and harm-reduction strategy is the event's main impact on social
work with substance use disorders (SUDs), (Walden University, LLC, 2023). Because of this
progression, social workers must be knowledgeable with evidence-based techniques, such as
trauma-informed care and medication-assisted treatment (MAT), in order to address co-
occurring mental health issues and promote recovery through lobbying for systemic policy
changes and empathy. The unspoken guidelines for conduct that are upheld by social
acceptance or rejection are known as social norms. The underlying values and ideas that either
support or contradict those rules are known as attitudes. These encourage us to follow the
example set by others. Even if a practice is socially unacceptable, it would be difficult to stop if
it was historically widespread, such as when children are physically punished. Discriminatory
attitudes and practices from the past, especially those related to race or class, can have a
lasting impact on the legal system. For many years, "broken windows" policing was used to
justify aggressive policing in underprivileged communities on the faulty presumption that little
infractions indicate social disintegration (The Opioid Crisis in the United States, 2022).
These are our opinions about what other people think is acceptable or unacceptable. A
modern workplace, for instance, has an injunctive norm of professionalism and polite language
that prevents people from acting in an unprofessional manner, even if such behavior was
previously accepted. Distribution of naloxone (e.g., Narcan), a medicine used to reverse an
opioid overdose, and test strips to identify fentanyl in drug samples have been common
components of federal and state harm reduction initiatives. Although the federal government
has not yet approved these facilities and it is uncertain whether they are legally permitted
under federal law, some states and municipalities have investigated the usage of supervised
consumption places (The Opioid Crisis in the United States, 2022).
References:
Duchovny, N., & Mutter, R. (2022, September). The opioid crisis and recent federal policy
responses. Links to an external site. Congressional Budget Office.
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-09/58221-opioid-crisis.pdf
Duff, Johnathan H.; Lampe, Joanna R.; Rosen, Liana W.; Shen, Wen W. (2022, December). The
Opioid Crisis in the United States: A Brief History
The Opioid Crisis in the United States (2022, September).
Walden University, LLC. (2023). Changing perspectives on substance use over time Links to an
external site. [Interactive media]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com
