In recent years, the US has seen a steady rise in the rate of opioid-related deaths. In fact, around 43,000 people overdosed on prescription opioids and heroin in 2016 alone. That’s a 200% increase in opioid-related deaths since 2000, which explains why it’s called an opioid epidemic. However, how did all of this start? And are you or a loved one in need of LGBT addiction treatment?
The Letter
The origin of the modern epidemic stretches back to 1980. The New England Journal of Medicine published a short letter on narcotic addiction that year. The takeaway from the letter was that the risk of addiction is very low in hospitalized patients.
Over the next 37 years, that letter got cited 439 times to support the idea that opioid addiction was unlikely. The letter alone isn’t to blame. It didn’t create the current crisis. What it did was help convince doctors that opioids are low-risk.
Lobbying
Until the late 1990s, the laws and guidelines on opioid prescriptions limited their use to cancer patients in many states. That changed when lobbying efforts got the laws and guidelines changed. Doctors could start prescribing opioids for other conditions.
Prescription Upswing
Much like the letter, the change in guidelines isn’t wholly responsible for the opioid epidemic. It just gave doctors another tool for pain management. The upswing in prescriptions stems from a report in 2000 that said doctors didn’t treat patient pain properly. The report went on to recommend that doctors check on patient pain at every appointment.
The problem is that the only way to assess pain is to ask patients about their pain level. If they say they’re in terrible pain, the doctor prescribes opioids.
The Opioid Epidemic
The epidemic didn’t happen overnight. It started with a letter based on records of patients in hospitals. The letter was used to support the idea that opioids don’t end in addiction. This idea likely played a role in the change to opioid laws and guidelines. Those changes paired with criticism of pain management led doctors to prescribe more opioids.
The massive rise in opioid deaths suggests they do create addiction. Worse still, many people who start out taking a legal prescription shift to heroin, because it’s cheaper or easier to get.
Hope for Change
Don’t let an opioid addiction go untreated. Although the opioid epidemic shows no signs of slowing down, there’s help available for members of the LGBTQ community. Various facilities offer comprehensive LGBT friendly opioid detox programs, residential treatment programs, and other LGBT friendly detox methods to help individuals recover.
