The Importance Of Prescription Drug Dependence

Among the factors thought to contribute to initial heroin use is prescription drug dependence. Reliance on pain medication (in the form of Oxycodone or Vicodin) causes subsequent drug dependence, but, due to the economic and legal issues involved in the acquisition of prescription pain medication, heroin is substituted as an inexpensive more accessible alternative (Draus et al., 2006). Opiate pain medications cost, on average, $1 per milligram, and the typical dose is 60 mg. As a result, one opiate pill will cost you $60, and the equivalent amount of heroin can be obtained for one-tenth of this price (Gupta, 2015). Additionally, a majority of doctors are hyper-vigilant of the addictive properties that prescription opioid painkillers possess and can only prescribe a certain amount within a set time period. As such, addicts must engineer increasingly difficult ploys and manipulations in order to get more from painkillers from, oftentimes, several different doctors. Heroin is often much easier to obtain and much more readily available at the addict’s convenience. Oxycodone and Vicodin are all defined as opiates, which are a class of narcotics that mimic the pain-relieving chemicals that the body naturally produces (National Institutes of Health, 2014). When heroin, Oxycodone or any other drug in the opiate family travels through the …show more content…
Substance abuse, particularly in the form of opiates, is often used as a coping mechanism. Several studies found that sexual, physical and/or emotional abuse experienced as a child or adolescent is thought to correlate to a higher chance of substance abuse due to it being used as a way to cope with the aftermath of being a victim of abuse. Furthermore, studies found that trauma of any kind, even outside the realm of sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse, such as the death of a parent, is correlated to substance