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Example research essay topic: Drug Enforcement Agency Law Enforcement Agencies - 2,247 words

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How Medicine Can Turn into a Weapon The number of various diseases, that were impossible or hard to cure just several years ago, had substantially decreased due to the scientific and technological advance. The rapid development of medicine and especially of the pharmaceutical industry had resulted in a creation of a variety of new and sophisticated drugs. With every year, they become more strong and effective than their predecessors. Thousands of people with different illnesses depend on a certain kind of medical preparation, which can be a miraculous single chance for them to live a normal life. From one hand, it is good that there is a cure for them, that there is a chance to forget about an annoying pain that is bothering the body for hours. However, from another hand some types of newly developed drugs are quite dangerous, because of their chemical structure.

For some people relatively harmless medicine often turns into a weapon that kills, injures, and makes life miserable, especially for those, who intentionally and mindlessly misuse it, in order to change their state of consciousness. Often the creation of new drugs generates new problems, just like in case of OxyContin. Its problem is drug addiction and drug abuse. Purdue Pharma L.

P. originally developed OxyContin in 1996 as a very strong opioid drug that is used as a pain reliever. For several years, it has been nations best selling analgesic. It contains oxy condone that in its structure is quite similar to morphine.

Morphine is also a strong narcotic pain reliever that was widely used generally after surgeries in the first half of the XX century, but due to its high physical addictive ness level, the medical use of it with a development of new and safer painkillers started to decrease. As we know, morphine relates to the class of opioids, which are classified, as strong, dangerous, and highly addictive drugs, but even today, they remain the most effective painkillers ever found. OxyContin was originally intended to kill moderate to severe pain, especially when the pain lasts for long periods and is associated with different serious injuries, surgeries, back problems and cancer. For this purpose, the small dose of painkilling oxycodone is released during the 12 -hour period out of the OxyContin tablet that slowly dissolves in stomach after it was swallowed. It is prescribed to be ingested twice a day. For instance, the release of a large amount of oxycodone all at once will result into drug overdose, which possibly can be followed even with lethal outcome.

That is why it is forbidden to chew, crush or break the tablet, because it will cause a huge amount of oxycodone released. It is also strongly advised to consult with a qualified physician in order to adjust the dose before starting to use this potentially risky medicine. Cases of addiction to opioids that are used for medical purposes are quite rare, but still the possibility of getting addicted remains. Some patients, who daily need to take OxyContin, may develop physical tolerance (later in the paper it will be written about such a case that already have happened).

The withdrawal from Oxycontin's physical dependence is the process of gradually reducing the dose until final rejection of its use. A physician should guide this activity and help the patient if something goes wrong. One of the side effects of OxyContin is the impairment of motor skills. So when taking this medicine, the patient should not perform potentially dangerous activities, such as driving a car or operating heavy machinery. It is proved by various researches that healthy patients that rely on OxyContin do not report typical euphoria after the use of the product, unlike opioid abusers. This is due mainly to the small amounts of oxycodone released.

OxyContin is safe, helpful, and reliable medicine when it is used as directed. Nevertheless, there were some cases where the legitimate drug users became addicted on OxyContin and later even switched to heroin, a very dangerous, and the most addictive drug ever known. After the course of treatment expired their health insurance would not longer pay for the OxyContin, besides that they did not have a prescription. Therefore, those addicted patients who depended on the drug and were not able to buy OxyContin on the streets due to its high price, started to buy lower cost heroin, like in West Virginia, where heroin in comparison with illegal oxycodone products was cheaper.

The importance of this issue that has attracted a lot of public attention to OxyContin throughout the country lies in its abuse. The use of medicine containing oxycodone had drastically increased in America over the past ten years. The Journal of the American Medical Association has recently published a material containing two biggest collection sources in the field of drug abuse. They are Drug Enforcement Agency's Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System and The Drug Abuse Warning Network Medical Examiner and Emergency Department, which have collected the data stating that the use of various products containing oxycodone had resulted into 23 percent increase during the period from 1990 to 1996.

This data reflects only the legal use of a prescribed medicine. But from 1997 to 1998 the Drug Abuse Warning Network Medical Examiner reported a 93 percent increase of use of oxycodone-based analgesic. In 2000 the sales of OxyContin were totaling 1. 05 billion dollars. In contrast, in 2001 they increased in 50 percent and reached 1. 5 billion.

That happened when many of legitimate users started to overlook their choice to this type of pain reliever due to the increasing public concerns over the products addictive ness and finally some of them switched to other less risky pain relievers. It would not be hard to guess that the great portion of OxyContin was sold on the streets, where it became very popular among the heroin abusers. Oxycodone containing pills became used in some cases as a substitute for generally more expensive heroin, eventually being called poor mans heroin. For instance, the prescribed OxyContin is sold in a drugstore for $ 400 for a 100 -tablet bottle, when illegally it is possible to purchase the same 100 -tablet bottle for about $ 2000 to $ 4000. Originally, the abuse of OxyContin has started in Maine and Virginia, and spread to Kentucky, West Virginia, and even Ohio. Abusers can ingest OxyContin in many different ways.

They can chew and swallow the tablets, in order to release all oxycodone that it contains. They can crush the tablets, because crushed tablets can be easily dissolved in water and the received solution intravenously injected. It is also possible even to snort crushed powder. Using all these methods abusers receive a high dose of oxycodone all at once.

Basically, oxycodone abuse is same as heroin abuse, and is dangerous as well. Definitely, it is profitable for drug dealers to sell this opiate illegally on the streets. There is absolutely no doubt that they will promote it. Consequently, the number of OxyContin abusers will increase due to the growing popularity and availability of the opiate, which will lead to more drug related injuries and deaths. It is quite hard to control the distribution of this opiate, but in my opinion changing the procedure of the drugs purchase can lead to some positive effects.

And the worst thing is that those who want to get high on this staff do not even assume how dangerous it can be. The first goal in order to decrease OxyContin abuse is definitely providing the population with full information about the drug. If everyone who would like to try it will be aware about all the threats and consequences, I think that the number of those individuals who actually try will be significantly lower. Moreover, there will be at least not so many lethal incidents among the regular opiate abusers.

The reasons for the number of deaths throughout the country following the abuse of OxyContin were severe overdose and poly pharmacy, which is the use of several kinds of drugs together. In case of OxyContin, it can be the mixture with alcohol, which can result into coma or sometimes even death. It is totally forbidden to drink any alcoholic beverage while using oxycodone-containing medicine, for reason of occurrence of unpredicted chemical reaction. Essentially, when OxyContin is snorted or chewed, it lowers the persons respiration rate, so when a lot of drug is consumed, especially with a combination with other drugs, the person can stop to breathe. What was actually the reason for OxyContin to become the most dangerous and deadly drug in America? First of all, it is its opioid structure.

Second factor is availability, because if there is heroin, which is sold in the drugstore next to your house, it will be relatively easy to get it. These are two main reasons that made OxyContin so dangerous, from my point of view, but actually, I could add another tooth lack of information on how to use the drug and mindless consumption by abusers. While law enforcement agencies are searching somewhere for drug dealers, destroying the large amounts of different drugs that were confiscated, risking their lives, while pursuing criminals, closing illegal laboratories; drug abusers simply go to the drugstore and get oxycodone, if they have a prescription. Even if they have not, they can easily find a person who has one, because I believe it is actually possible to get one even if you are not sick, so they can by the drug without wasting too much time. Throughout the country, addicts are writing fake prescriptions, lying to doctors about having health problems, and all this only for getting OxyContin. People who try oxycodone for the first time simply do not realize that it is almost the same as heroin.

What can be more dangerous than heroin? They also do not suspect that they can become addicted. Nevertheless, they are absolutely sure that oxy will not hurt them. However, it does. Unfortunately, there is a huge gap between the accurate knowledge and even basic information about the Oxycontin's dangerous consequences in contrast with the talks about how high it can get you. They have heard a lot about, how cool the drug, but did not hear how many people have died over it.

Many people have learned this lesson when it was too late. Some became addicted; some have lost their relatives and friends. That is how the medicine, which was originally designed to help, brings trouble. In Philadelphia, 22 deaths have been connected with the oxycodone abuse over the period of three month in 2000.

The U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency reported that OxyContin played a role in 282 deaths nationwide only during 2000. I did not even assume that this number would be so large and the problem would be of such a big scale.

Besides the high quantity of OxyContin related deaths and injuries, this problem also have influenced the number of crimes that were committed by addicts in order to get more pills. For instance, in fall of 2000, 22 -year-old man from Germantown used a 9 mm firearm to rob five pharmacies in three different cities just in order to get the drug on which he developed physical dependence. According to Cox News Service, January 28, 2002 (just recently), one man did not have a prescription for the OxyContin when he walked into a pharmacy and returned with 100 pills of OxyContin after he endangered the life of the pharmacys owner with a knife. Later he was arrested and accused of three armed robberies in Montgomery County and now remains in the Montgomery County Jail. This man did not have any history of drug abuse, but he could not stop using OxyContin following his work-related injury.

After all these events, several numbers of drugstores refused to sell the product, leaving the sign on the door: Sorry, due to the circumstances, we no longer sell OxyContin. What actually can be done in order to solve this problem? State Representative of Ohio Tom Raga with other Warren County officials has introduced new legislation that would create a database of prescriptions in Ohio. Doctors would electronically submit all the information about the patients who were issued prescriptions to a database, which would be maintained by the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy. The access to this database would be given to law enforcement agencies in order to investigate the cases of illegal sales and abuse. The debate over OxyContin has moved to the courts.

Attorneys have filled a number of lawsuits against Purdue Pharma L. P. The Montgomery County's suit has accused OxyContin producer of failure to adequately warn public about the drugs danger and the high addictive ness of OxyContin component oxycodone. I think that those lawsuits are quite fair. In my opinion, such a product should not have been sold in a regular drugstore, even to people, who have a prescription, because there are many other ways, how the product can reach the customer, for instance, physicians or medical institutions could distribute it directly to patients. The biggest concern that we should pay close attention to is the increasing number of drug abusers.

Also, the government should take some actions concerning this issue. Here is the quotation that describes this situation the best: Whether you want to blame the drug or the people using and selling the medication its all become the problem. (Chuck Baker, Deputy Chief, web). Sources: web web web web


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Research essay sample on Drug Enforcement Agency Law Enforcement Agencies

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