Opioid Crisis Episode 4

The final episode of the podcast series on the opioid crisis discusses potential solutions. Overprescription is identified as a common cause of addiction. Solutions proposed include implicit bias training for doctors, distinguishing between happy patients and well-treated patients, and securing opioids in homes. Easy access to Narcan is also suggested as a short-term rehab solution. The podcast emphasizes the need for solutions applicable to different groups of people. The personal interest in the topic is explained, and resources for substance abuse help are provided. Hi, I'm Riley Mitchell, and you're listening to the final episode of my podcast series on the opioid crisis. For this fourth and final piece, we'll be looking into potential solutions, and I'll also be giving a personal reflection on both the content of my podcast and opinions of my own. When solutions to the opioid crisis are being discussed, I often find that it can be hard to even comprehend where to start. There are copious amounts of elements that play into the crisis, each needing a different solution. So how can we even begin to create a solution plan? When I was beginning to dive into this, I think it was really important to find the most common threads between separate groups. What is similar about them and what is different? Where could one start to create a plan that can overarch and assist different groups of people? Through my research in many different sources, namely PLOS Medicine and the Congressional Research Service, I found that one of the most common causes of addiction is overprescription. Overprescription, I believe, can be coined as one of the most common causes of addiction because of the possibilities it creates. Overprescription can have detrimental effects, and not just in one way. As examined more deeply in my episode two of the series, it was found that overprescription affects not only the person who was originally prescribed, but the people who are around them as well. Many addictions begin in the home, as stated by Biomedcentral. Addiction to opioids is one of the key contributors to the crisis, and is one that could be fixed. How could this be fixed? I believe that there are three main ways that we could go about this. The first one is implicit bias training of doctors. This means that talking to doctors and training them on ways to understand that addiction has no face and there is no need to make assumptions about who will or won't use opioids in the correct or incorrect way. The second is training doctors to understand the difference between a happy patient and a well-treated patient. As learned in a lot of my research, it is found that doctors often struggle to find the line between making their patients happy and feel good versus actually treating them well. This line can be very thin, but it's very important because oftentimes happy patients may be overprescribed. And the third, in terms of homes that have opioids in them, keeping them in a secure and safe space. This solution is kind of the most tangible solution of them all, in my opinion, because it can just be solved by simply buying a lock for your cabinets if you have children or younger people around in the home. One of the more quote-unquote complex aspects of the crisis is to create solutions that really help all identities of people. To create a set-in-stone solution for each different identity or group of people would not be impossible, it would be very time-consuming, and this issue is something that cannot have any time wasted. So I believe the most adequate way to go about this problem is to find at least one viable solution that is applicable to many different groups of people. One example of this that has been put into place in many institutions is easy access to Narcan. As examined by JAMA, Narcan is considered a quote-short-term end-quote rehab solution. It is something that, if used, can work on anybody, no matter identity, race, socioeconomic status, etc. If access to Narcan is increased, everyone will be benefited. Narcan over the past few years has definitely become more widespread, especially in college settings. As someone who is coming up on their 18th birthday and about to enter my last year of high school, I believe that this push is absolutely necessary. As stated by Inside Higher Ed, Bridgewater State University of Massachusetts was actually the first college to publicly provide Narcan kits. UT Austin and Ithaca College started soon after and followed their lead, as well as many other schools. And coming from a young person, as it may seem very grim to provide Narcan kits, it is something that is absolutely necessary because if something does happen, it is much better to have it and maybe not need it than need it and not have it. It is something that could save so many lives, no matter who the person is, what their goal was, if they're an addict or just misused one time. My two proposed solutions of lower prescription rates and Narcan access are just two things in a sea full of possible solutions to this crisis. It is still raining strong and for many people has become a personal issue. More and more young people are using and more and more young people are dying. The steps to halting the rapid increase of opioid use are not impossible. While I know this podcast has been kind of a lot of facts, statistics, research, more historical, I guess for this last episode I wanted to get a little bit into more of the personal side of this as for why this was really of interest to me. My interest in this topic kind of started about two years ago when a really good friend of mine really went down and is still kind of down a pretty bad path with opioid use. And when I heard about SDPs for the first time in my freshman year of high school I thought to myself I would really like to do an SDP on wilderness therapy because my really good friend was sent to wilderness therapy due to his opioid use. And I found that that was super interesting and kind of as time went on and more time passed and he was still using, I came up on my theories of justice class and we learned about the opioid crisis as a whole because I didn't really know anything besides my own personal experience or like secondary personal experience with it. And as we went through that class and kind of learned more about like really in depth about the crisis, I decided that it was something that I really wanted to continue doing because I really enjoyed the small aspect that I did of it which was just about implicit bias and podcasting was something that I kind of wasn't as confident in as other skills such as writing or making videos. So this SDP kind of both taught me a little bit about myself and someone that I really care about but also the world and about a new skill that I will continue to use throughout my education. I hope you enjoyed my podcast series and found some valuable information. If you take anything away, I hope it is that you check in on the people in your lives. Misuse, abuse of opioids does not just have one face. Thank you so much for listening and coming on this exploratory journey with me. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, there are many places you can call. If you're from Massachusetts, you can go to www.mass.gov slash dph slash bsas for the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services. If you are not and you're from anywhere else in the country, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has the link of www.drugabuse.gov. There's also the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA and that can be found at www.samhsa.gov slash find-treatment. And finally, there is both Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous which can be found at www.aa.org or www.na.org.