Addictive practices arise from similar chemical pathways in our brain. The development of these pathways is through exposure to substances or other uncontrollable compulsive behavior. These pathways result in the euphoric feelings from the release of dopamine from the reward. This can result in an addiction, where your brain develops a sensitization to the substance or activity that triggers the reward pathway. This develops and rewires portions of your brain to crave the substance or activity. Following this, the addiction requires more substance to deliver a similar rewarding response, thus the user develops a tolerance, potentially leading to the user having an overdose of the substance.
Over the past 30 years increasing number of individuals are becoming addicted to opioids. This has resulted in a major number of deaths, and millions of individuals that attempt to self medicate with other street drugs.
So what are potential solutions?
Mitigating the usage of opioids, and utilization of alternative painkillers. There should be more regulation and documentation of prescribed opioids, like antibiotics, abuse of something good can result in severe problems.
In the US Drug related deaths result in more deaths(64,000) annually than automotive accidents(40,000), and firearm related deaths(39,000). Approximately two-thirds of those deaths are related to the abuse of synthetic opioids. So besides the constraints placed on the healthcare system to minimize opioid prescription, what other factors could be utilized to address this? Gateway drugs still remain widespread, and are sought by many for recreational use. These may not result in being potentially fatal, however the normalization of these in society, and the push for legalization further contributes to this problem. The justification to smoke recreational drugs is somehow normalized, when there is a major push to eliminate the usage of cigarettes because of their harmful effects. Yes legalization allows for more fiscal gain and control of the substances by the government, though this still will take a major toll on the healthcare of our country in a few decades due to the side effects of substance abuse. Where there will be some gain from taxes, the implications of substance abuse will result in costing the system more over the course of time, as this will increase the number of individuals experimenting with opioids, further increasing the opioid crisis in the US.
Sources:
https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html
https://www.centeronaddiction.org/the-buzz-blog/we-asked-you-answered-did-guns-car-crashes-or-drug-overdoses-kill-more-people-2017
