Opium derivatives cause addiction

Currently in the United States there is an epidemic caused by the addiction towards opium
derivatives. The figures from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute on
Drug Abuse show that “there are 2.6 million people addicted to opium derivatives (e.g heroin and
analgesics such as fentanyl and oxycodone among others) after thousands of fatal overdoses having been
registered: 8200 deceased in 1999 and 33.000 in 2015, beating the number of homicides committed with
firearms.

Seventy eight people die every day because of opioids abuse mixed with alcohol which causes a synergic
effect that leads to fatal breathing problems. The federal government has requested the immediate
attention for this epidemic so it is considered as a social disease and not a moral failure.

Experts state that “the addiction is a brain disease where neural circuits have been compromised by the
taking of drugs”. Sally Sattler, psychiatrist at Partners in Drug Abuse Rehabilitation and Counseling in
Washington D.C supports “the immediate treatment with antidrug products” and rejects prison punishment.
The treatments to rehabilitate addicts to drugs have shown that the addiction, in order to be eradicated,
requires a monitored professional therapeutic treatment and family support, supervision of logistics,
prescribed antidrug medicine and regular poison control.