Watts 1

Kaci Watts

Rebecca Morean

English 1201 515

26 April 2020

The Effect of Addiction and Chemical Dependency in The United States

Addiction has ravaged the world for years. Both addiction and chemical dependency have

become more prevalent. Every day on the news people hear stories about drug related violence,

deaths, and sales. This epidemic has changed lives for people not only across the nation, but

across the world. Hundreds to thousands, and possibly millions of people have lost their loved

ones to addiction. The United States government has attempted to fight the drug crisis for several

years, but it has remained to affect more and more lives. People may wonder how the drug

epidemic affects the government or why should they care about it? The drug crisis effects the

U.S by killing thousands of people from overdoses or violence related to drug use and sale.

Crime related to drugs have become a norm. The medical field are riddled with patients from

drug related health problems or injuries. The economy has taken a hit from the sale and

distribution in the United States. Most addicts can’t hold a stable job and put their friends and

family in debt because of their addiction. Substance abuse has caused a myriad of issues in the

United States government by overwhelming the justice system, causing a financial strain in the

economy, and overworking the healthcare system.

Before trying to understand what substance abuse has done to America, it is important to

understand its history. For centuries drugs have been used recreationally and medically. Cocaine

was a drug commonly distributed legally in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. It was

an ingredient in various of products in that time period. Products like Coca-Cola and margarine
 Watts 2

for example, contained cocaine as an active ingredient. This drug was even prescribed to patients

for a multitude of illnesses. There was a spike of cocaine addicted individuals causing the

government to implement a law making it illegal to use drugs like cocaine recreationally, but

health professionals were still allowed to prescribe them. This law was called the Harrison Act of

1914. The use of cocaine and other illicit drugs died down for a while but spiked when the 1970s

hit. Marijuana and party drugs such as: mushrooms, ecstasy, LSD, and acid became extremely

popular with the younger generation. By the time the 1980s hit, drug sales were at an all-time

high because the prices went down, so average American had access to them instead of only the

rich.

Opioids have become the drug of choice for millions of Americans. Opioids were legal

for a hundred years in the United States until it became precedent that it was negatively effecting

people using it for recreational purposes. In the early twentieth century heroin use reached

extremely high levels. In reaction to this the United States government banned opium from

smoking and food products. Opioids became completely illegal for sales in the 1910s, and

eventually more restricted access to it in the 1970s. In 1998 the opioid drug OxyContin hit the

market and eleven million people were using it for pain management. By the 2010s opioid

addiction became a nationwide epidemic with two million people addicted, but that was just

prescription opioids. Two years later the President Barack Obama implemented an act to help

fight this epidemic. “Today, synthetic opioids including heroin, illicitly manufactured fentanyl,

and certain fentanyl analogues are classified as Schedule I drugs. An individual trafficking 40 to

399 grams of fentanyl, 10 to 99 grams of fentanyl analogue, or 100 to 999 grams of heroin is

subject to between 5 and 40 years in prison,” (Galles). Opioids are now rarely prescribed to
 Watts 3

patients due to the risk of abuse. Opioids are one of the most used illicit drugs and are the cause

of today’s current epidemic.

The government has a lot on its hands, but today the judicial system is overwhelmed with

drug related cases. In 1971 President Richard Nixon brought about the “war on drugs.” It was a

measure to attempt to stop the raising rate of substance abusers. This proved to have harsher

punishments on people facing drug related charges, which ended becoming a reason for the

overwhelmed judicial system. The harsher enforcement tended to focus on minorities causing a

lot of discriminatory practices from law enforcement officers. Hundreds of arrests are made a

day from drug distribution, use, and possession. Incarcerating people for drug-related offenses

has been shown to have little impact on substance misuse rates. According to Betsy Pearl in

Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers,

One-fifth of the incarcerated population—or 456,000 individuals—is serving time for a

drug charge. Another 1.15 million people are on probation and parole for drug-related

offenses. Instead, incarceration is linked with increased mortality from overdose. In the

first two weeks after their release from prison, individuals are almost 13 times more

likely to die than the general population. The leading cause of death among recently

released individuals is overdose. During that period, individuals are at a 129 percent

greater risk of dying from an overdose than the general public.

Prisons and jails are overburdened with inmates upon inmates, many of which are in

doing time for drug related charges. Inmates can still access drugs while serving time in prison,

so when they get out, they revert to their old ways. That is a huge issue because hundreds of

thousands of people are being incarcerated for drug related crimes yearly and they may spend a

year or more in prison for their crime. When a person reverts to their old habits, they're likely to
 Watts 4

go back in for the same charges, which burdens the system and causes overpopulation in prisons.

Jail time on average doesn’t have a huge impact on the person and their drug issues. It usually

doesn’t change much for the inmate and when they’re out nothing changes. Burdening the

judicial system is not the best use of the government, but as substance abuse becomes more

prevalent, the more drug related arrests there will be.

Financially drug abuse has negatively affected the government. Substance abuse has a

huge impact on the economy. The government has spent billions to trillions of dollars trying to

fight against drug abuse. It has costed state governments billions of dollars to incarcerate people

arrested for drug related crimes. Majority of drug addicts are unemployed and on unemployment,

which costs the government money. If there’s thousands of people unemployed then the

government is paying quite a bit of money for those people to be able to live. Substance abuse is

linked to money distress. When a person is stressing over money or how they’re going to get

their income they might just use substances like drugs or alcohol to numb it. To incarcerate or to

hold inmates in prisons it costs the government millions to billions of dollars a year. Betsy Pearl

writes in Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers, “State governments spent another $7

billion in 2015 to incarcerate individuals for drug-related charges. North Carolina, for example,

spent more than $70 million incarcerating people for drug possession.” The government puts

billions into the justice system to support the inmates coming into the prison and the ones already

there. Because of overpopulation within the prison systems it takes more money from the

government to support them. Drug abuse has negatively affected the economy due to the

multitude of things the government has to pay for.

The effects of substance abuse have worked the healthcare system almost to its breaking

point. The use of illicit substances effects a person's health tremendously. When a person suffers
 Watts 5

from drug addiction using substances like cocaine or heroin, they take serious risks and the

possibility of overdosing is extremely high. They take the drugs more and more until they

eventually can’t take it and pass away. There are several factors that come into play when talking

about the health risks of drug users. There’s a wide range of health issues that can come about

depending on the drug the person takes, how deep they are into their addiction, and underlying

illnesses they have. Certain drugs have different effects on the person and symptoms that are

similar to mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Drugs such as heroin not only affect the person

addicted to the substance, but the child they carry too, if they are pregnant. “Heroin abuse can

lead to addiction as well as to serious health effects, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and liver

and kidney disease. Pregnant women who use heroin may have a miscarriage or a premature

delivery. There is also an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the newborn

that survives the delivery to a woman addicted to heroin,” (Gwinnell). This doesn’t only pertain

to heroin, but many other drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and hallucinogens. It can be

nearly deadly for the fetus if it is subjected to those type of substances. Methamphetamines have

several serious issues that affect the user if they use it regularly. “Methamphetamine abuse, too,

has many serious consequences to the health of the user. Chronic use of methamphetamine can

lead to auditory and visual hallucinations. Paranoia and extreme rages may also occur,

precipitating violence. Some chronic users of methamphetamine suffer from the terrifying

delusion that insects are crawling underneath their skin. Users of crystal methamphetamine risk

the development of psychotic symptoms that may persist for months or years,” (Gwinnell). Drug

addiction isn’t the only thing that’s harmful, but one use of a certain amount and type of drugs

can be extremely harmful. Drug use can cause both chronic and acute health issues that

eventually lead to death and the healthcare system must deal with all of it.
 Watts 6

The mortality rate and the misuse of prescription drugs have burdened the healthcare

system. The mortality rate has gone up in recent years due to the spike in drug use. Mortality rate

is the death rate of a nation, disease, etc. Researcher, Pamela Michaels, writes in the article,

Drug/Substance Abuse, that “about 200,000 individuals die annually as a result of drug use, with

the highest overall mortality rate among heroin and cocaine users.” Mortality swamps the

healthcare system because most of the cases are overdoses and they are called to help the patient,

or they show up at hospitals. In the chart below shows the number of overdose deaths from

cocaine and opioids.

Doctors and hospitals can’t “hand” out opioid pain killers as often any longer. They must be very

cautious of who they are giving them to. Drug addicts will pretend to have an illness of some sort

to receive their “fix” or drug of choice, if they are addicted to prescription pain medicine. The

healthcare system has taken hundreds of patients that need that type of drug for pain

management off. My father for example has Crohn’s Disease, which chronic illness that can vary

patient to patient, but he has the worst form of the disease. He used to take over twelve
 Watts 7

prescription medicines for his pain, arthritis, and other issues, but because of the opioid crisis

they took him off of all of the medicines. This can be very hard for the patient if they have been

on those drugs for years, but it is necessary to prevent anymore issues that come with the drug

epidemic. In Young Adults’ Opioid Prescription History and Opioid Misuse Perceptions by

Alexa Romberg, she writes that “In 2016, more than 11.5 million people in the US aged 12 and

over misused prescription opioids.” This shows the magnitude of prescription drug abuse in the

United States and why there are so many restrictions hospitals must go through to treat a patient.

Millions of Americans have at least once abused prescription drugs burdening the system by

making it harder for them to treat the patients that need it. The mortality rate and prescription

drug crisis greatly impact the healthcare system bogging them down with barriers and issues they

must deal with on a day to day basis.

A dozen systems suffer from the disease that is substance addiction. The government

suffers from the epidemic more than anything. They go into debt trying to sustain the judicial

system in overcrowded prisons with low staff and supporting the addicts out of prison with

programs like unemployment and food stamps. The economy has suffered from trying to help

people with those programs and the unemployment rate. Healthcare systems must endure

thousands of overdoses a year, patients who are faking an illness to receive drugs, the effects of

those drugs on the addicts, and the innocent patients who must deal with their pain because of the

spike in drug issues/use. The judicial system doesn’t have enough room or staff to handle the

number of cases that come in a day nor do they have enough room in prisons to keep the

offenders. Systems are faced with the brunt of the substance addiction epidemic and there is no

way for them to take a break from it or stop it. Multiple areas are affected by substance abuse in
 Watts 8

the United States, but it is evident there are three main areas that are affected by addiction. The

economy, judicial system, and healthcare systems endure the worst from addiction.
 Watts 9

Works Cited

"Drug Abuse." Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context:

Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale

-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/WLESHM793731349/OVIC

?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=e73cd127. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Galles , Kelsey. “The History of Illegal Drugs in the United States.” Detox.net, American

Addiction Centers , 20 Feb. 2020, www.detox.net/other-drugs/history-of-illegal-drugs/.

Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Glei, Dana A., and Maxine Weinstein. “Drug and Alcohol Abuse: The Role of Economic

Insecurity.” American Journal of Health Behavior, vol. 43, no. 4, July 2019, pp. 838

–857. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5993/AJHB.43.4.16. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Gurevich, Natalia. "Opioid Addiction." CQ Researcher, 24 July 2019,

library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqr_ht_opioids_2019. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Gwinnell, Esther, and Christine Adamec. "drug abuse and dependence and health problems."

The Encyclopedia of Addictions and Addictive Behaviors, Esther Gwinnel, Facts On File,

2nd edition, 2016. Credo Reference, http://sinclair.ohionet.org/login?

url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/fofaaab/drug_abuse_and_dependenc

e_and_health_problems/0?institutionId=6043. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Harwood, Henrick J., et al. “Cost Estimates for Alcohol and Drug Abuse.” Addiction, vol. 94,

No. 5, May 1999, p. 631. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx

?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1900736&site=ehost-live. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Imtiaz, Sameer, et al. “Substance Use and Population Life Expectancy in the
 Watts 10

USA: Interactions with Health Inequalities and Implications for Policy.” Drug & Alcohol

Review, vol. 37, Apr. 2018, pp. S263–S267. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/dar.12616.

Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Michaels, Pamela. “Drug/Substance Abuse.” Worldmark Global Health and Medicine Issues,

edited by K. Lee Lerner, 1st ed., Gale, Farmington, MI, 2016. Credo Reference,

sinclair.ohionet.org/login?url=https://search-credoreference

-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/content/entry/galewhami/drug_substance_abuse/0. Accessed 27

Mar. 2020.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Overdose Death Rates.” NIDA, 10 Mar. 2020,

www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates. Accessed 27 Mar.

2020.

Pearl, Betsy. “Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers.” Center for American Progress,

www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war

-drugs-numbers/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Pei Lin Lua, and Nor Samira Talib. “Auricular Acupuncture for Drug Dependence: An

Open-Label Randomized Investigation on Clinical Outcomes, Health-Related Quality of Life,

and Patient Acceptability.” Alternative Therapies in Health & Medicine, vol. 19, no. 4,

July 2013, pp. 28–42. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=awh&AN=89450072&site=ehost-live.

Accessed 27 Mar. 2020

Rice, Dorothy P., and Sander Kelman. “Estimates of Economic Costs of Alcohol and Drug

Abuse And ..” Public Health Reports, vol. 106, no. 3, May 1991, p. 280. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9707103092&site=
 Watts 11

ehost-live. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.

Romberg, Alexa R., et al. “Young Adults’ Opioid Prescription History and Opioid

Misuse Perceptions.” American Journal of Health Behavior, vol. 43, no. 2, Mar. 2019,

Pp. 361–372. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5993/AJHB.43.2.12. Accessed 27 Mar. 2020.