Codeine Persuasive Speech

Codeine is an opioid medicine, narcotic, and cough suppressant commonly used as a painkiller to treat mild to moderate pain. But codeine is also widely abused and used as a drug and this is why it should be placed on the banned list. Codeine is sometimes considered one of the more “safer” opioid drugs, but that leads people to believe that it's safer to use and leads to massive amounts of addiction to codeine. Codeine, when consumed, is metabolized in the body and becomes morphine, which is a very dangerous drug. Codeine is harmful for the simple fact that people assume it is a safe drug, leading them into pressuring doctors into prescribing them codeine for their pain and coughs because it's so fast at suppressing their coughs and relieving pain. …show more content…
The purpose of a cough is to clear the throat so when one suppresses their cough they are risking suffocation. And of course one of the main reasons codeine should be banned, is that it's widely abused and used as a drug to get a “buzz” and get high off of. Its extremely dangerous because the number of deaths due to overdosing on opioid medicines is increasing among teenagers who don't know any better and overdose. Codeine has several side effects including lightheadedness which usually gives the feeling of being high causing people to become addicted to this drug. More serious side effects are breathing difficulties and when people become addicted to codeine this can be extremely harmful when they repeatedly use the drug. Aside from being harmful to people's health, the growing use of drugs affects the economy. The price of codeine can go as high as two hundred dollars and this causes more people looking for the drug. Drug dealing has become a massive issue, socially and economically for the United States as well as around the world. Due to drug use there has been a loss of $120 billion dollars in productivity caused by drug abuse treatment and premature