By Limus Woods
If you haven’t heard about it yet, you can now only get a seven-day opioid prescription at a time from CVS. Due to the hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from addiction to these pills, the pharmacy chain decided that it would be the first one in the country to limit the number of pills doctors can give their patients.
According to the New York Times, two years ago over 330,000 people died from this opioid epidemic. I was born in the early 1980’s, and as a kid, I lived through an era that was thought for a long time to have been the worst drug crisis in American history – the crack cocaine epidemic. This was one of the worst times in America for low-income neighborhoods because that is where most of the crack was. But, when it comes to this current trend of opioid use, these various pills that people are overusing are taking the lives of Americans from all walks of life, races, and backgrounds, no matter if they are lower, middle or upper class.
When some drug crises like this come out of nowhere, the first age group that many folks will think about is teens and young adults. This is because it’s easy to envision these young people popping pills at college parties, such as when the drug ecstasy was a major pill epidemic. Although there are many instances where young partiers will do things like taking pills then drink alcohol on purpose to intensify the effect, according to Democracy Now opioid overdoses are the leading cause of death in this country for people all the way up to age 50. One of the most surprising statistics I saw in the report is that more folks have died from this opioid epidemic than people who had AIDS in 1995.
Governor Chris Christie has had his eye on this opioid addiction heavily since this terrible epidemic began. He is one of the most dominant voices when it comes to addressing this major prescription drug issue in America right now. Christie, who is the head of President Trump’s Commission on Opioids and Drug Abuse, asked the White House to declare this a national emergency. The Republican governor was in Mendham, NJ when he did the CNN interview. “We’ve gotten really good response from the White House,” he began, “and quite frankly from the public in terms of our recommendations. And, I’m confident that the President will accept the recommendations of this commission. The fact is that it is a national emergency. According to the CDC, 142 people, a day are dying in America of drug overdoses. This means that we have a 9/11 scale loss of life every three weeks.”
People who use opioid pills responsibly will have to double back to their local CVS Pharmacy on a weekly basis now since they can only get seven days’ worth of pills at a time. But, even though the good patients have to suffer with the bad, this move is one in the right direction when it comes to addressing the health of the public.
Image from Fortune Health. Limus Woods is a Professional Writer/Editor and member of the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors (IAPWE). He can be reached at limusw@gmail.com.
