The Rise on Prescription Drug Abuse

Many Americans are diagnosed with chronic pain. Indeed, according to the Institute of Medicine, 116 million American adults are suffering from chronic pain. Most of these adults do not seem to receive adequate treatment to deal with or treat their own pain. This is mainly due to the fact that the doctor can not effectively diagnose their patients, or lack of doctor's knowledge to help manage the highest pain experienced by the patient. This is why most people think doctors are the main reason for increasing abuse of prescription drugs (Garcia, 2013).

In the United States, there are various factors that cause abuse of prescription medicine is increasing. The motivation for intentional substance abuse is what you want to become addiction, fighting anxiety, pain or sleep problems, and strengthening cognition. Accidental abuse may be due to misunderstandings regarding drug safety, use of marketed medicines, and dose inaccuracy due to cognitive deterioration or injury. The cause of this problem is the proliferation of drug supply and prescription. From 1999 to 2009, the prescription number increased by 39% (2.8 to 3.9 billion) and the US population growth rate was 9%. The average number of retail prescriptions per capita increased from 10.1 in 1999 to 12.6 in 2009. Between 1991 and 2010, the prescription of stimulants has increased from 5 million to nearly 45 million and the prescription for opioid analgesics has increased from approximately 75.5 million to 29.5 million (26).

Drug abuse is on the rise. Although the use of drugs such as cocaine and heroin is decreasing in some parts of the world, abuse of prescription drugs is increasing (UNODC, 2013). Prescription drug prescribed by prescription is currently one of the main causes of self-injurious behavior. Drug abuse has no sex or social class, and it may affect people regardless of social status or wealth. And now we need more than ever to understand the reason behind abuse. The United States has been fighting drug abuse for more than a century. The four presidents started a "drug war", and unfortunately the war kept going out at an alarming rate. Drug users continue to fill our courts, hospitals and prisons. Drug trafficking causes violent crime in our community. Children of drug users are ignored, abused and even abandoned. The current method of dealing with this problem does not work.