OxyContin and competitor drugs were designed to release the medication slowly over long periods of time, making them and supposedly safe and effective enough to use for months to treat chronic pain. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

I knew a man that died alone on the floor of a prison cell. When all was said and done, a settlement was reached, and his life was ultimately valued at a few thousand dollars. It wasn’t more because he was an addict. I suppose for many Americans an addict’s life is worth even less. Across the waters in the Philippines, a drug user’s life can be lawfully taken. 

Despite this, I don’t find myself thinking often about America’s opioid epidemic. I don’t think about relatives that have slept on our couch fresh from prison, cousins that fall continuously into cesspools of society, and most of all I don’t think about the children that were left exposed to the dangers of society, or the child that desperately clutched onto my shirt in the night and stained me with tears.

Who would want to think about this? My extended family is my own personal D.A.R.E. program, warning me away from drug use. There is no doubt that opioid addiction negatively affects many. Opioids are medicines that manipulate the nervous system to inhibit pain. I think public perception is slowly shifting, and addiction is becoming more understood, but the origins remain largely unknown. I watched a John Oliver video on the opioid epidemic that I found enlightening, and I pursued my own research on the subject. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1999 to 2010, opioid prescriptions quadrupled. This was all thanks to a successful campaign by pharmaceutical companies to push painkillers into the public’s grace. During that same time period, deaths from opioids more than quadrupled. 

Here is where we have the problem. Patients are over prescribed addictive medicines like OxyContin and Vicodin. When their prescription runs out they are left stranded. Do you know what is cheaper than OxyContin? Heroin. 

At this point there doesn’t seem like much can be done to eradicate the problem. Painkillers can be prescribed more sparingly, but the drug culture has already been cultivated. It seems now that health care officials are struggling to stem the tide. There are steps being taken, but it’s like a small bandage on a gaping wound.

For example, the nasal spray Naloxone can reverse opioid overdoses. This is great, but once you revive the patient, you are still left with a person struggling with addiction.  Another program, one that I think is really great but has received a lot of negative public opinion, is needle exchanges. It’s a harm-reduction initiative where people who inject drugs can receive clean needles to reduce the transmission of HIV. I personally know people that have condemned the program because to them it was just encouraging the habit. I have a different view. To me, these people are going to inject themselves whether they have clean needles or not, so why not make sure that we at least have less disease transmission in the process? Or do you want more HIV in the world?

These programs are helpful, but they don’t address the actual addiction, or how we as a society can reduce addiction. School programs such as D.A.R.E have been largely ineffective. Statisticians Wei Pan and Haiyan Bai showed that students enrolled in the D.A.R.E program were just as likely to their counterparts to use drugs. The War on drugs fills our prisons but doesn’t reduce the crime rate.

It doesn’t seem like there is anything an individual person can do anyways, so as long as I’m not taking drugs, I don’t have to think about it myself. It’s not my problem. Right? That’s until I’m once again affected by it as someone I know is dragged down.

I suppose at the very least we can all be a little more aware. Have you ever heard of a tipping point? Malcolm Gladwell describes it as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” In other words, it’s the moment things begin to change. Gladwell believes one way this moment can be achieved is through the 80/20 principle. If 20 percent of our society is aware of the problem, then the remaining 80 percent will be affected. Well, now I’m aware, and so are you.