The Evils of Legal Drugs

After reading an article on the treatment of opioid addiction using a drug called Suboxone, I noticed that some people are getting addicted to prescription drugs with worse effects than some illegal ones.  The article provides two contrasting cases.  One where a man is injured and becomes addicted to prescription painkillers which eventually ruin his life and another where a 20 year old's friend overdoses and dies from the drugs he gave him and the young man finds himself facing 71 months in prison.  The first man uses Suboxone to beat his painkiller addiction and finally reclaim control of his life.  The pair of friends used Suboxone recreationally and it ruined their lives.  Buprenorphine, most commonly sold as Suboxone, is an opioid used to treat opioid addiction.  This two sided sword is amazingly helpful in its use to help wean off heroin addicts, but like all opioids, has great potential for abuse and addiction.  This led me to look a little further into prescription painkillers and how they have affected the United States.

            The results were depressing.  Another article I read called the widespread use and abuse of painkillers an epidemic.  High doses of extremely addicting painkillers like OxyContin were in some cases being prescribed for years.  In the past decade alone, sales of these painkillers quadrupled and so did the number of deaths from overdose.  What was 4000 quickly became almost 17000 deaths from overdose.  These painkillers are basically synthetic heroin and are much worse than many illegal drugs.  Cannabis for example has a history of zero overdoses and is in general not physically addicting, making it infinitely safer than opioids.  Even drugs like LSD and MDMA are safer than painkillers and have a lower potential for addiction or overdose.  These illegal drugs kill less people than the legal ones and are in general safer than the legal ones.  This nation is addicted to painkillers and I for one believe that some of our doctors have become worse drug dealers than the ones out on the street. 

1^st article:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clinics-and-on-the-street-bupe-can-be-savior-or-menace.html?_r=0

2^nd article:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/11/who-is-responsible-for-the-pain-pill-epidemic.html

Facts about illegal drugs: http://thedea.org/statistics.html