The World Is On The Cusp Of A Global Opioid Epidemic

It is high time to raise the alarm that the opioid abuse, which is now reaching epic proportions in the U.S.A. and Canada, is threatening to spread through the globe. Only last year, 50,000 people died of opioid overdoses across the U.S.A. Behind the threat also lies the spread of fentanyl, an extremely powerful synthetic opioid, whose rise seems unstoppable.

Opioids are derived from opium poppies. Since mid-1960, opioids have become increasingly popular to treat pain and are prescribed to patients terminally ill with cancer. But the drug is highly addictive and demands higher ad higher doses for those who take it regularly.

Opioids are widely misused for three reasons. First, clinicians can’t objectively measure pain in the way they can body temperature or blood pressure, so they rely on patients’ accuracy and honesty in judging pain severity. Second, opioids are highly prized, even by healthy people, because of the euphoria they create. And third, anyone without scruples can sell prescription opioids on the black market.

The drug's market demand has been accelerating with such speed since 1990s that it has attracted a lot of sharks in the medicine sector that smelled money. The indicators are that the industry has captured regulators.

Although most patients are not criminals, many criminals pretend to be patients. Furthermore, even otherwise honest people can be tempted into crime when the payoff is that great. Just by lying about a medical condition that doctors cannot verify with any objective test, a patient can obtain prescriptions worth tens of thousands of dollars. 

What are we facing in the world, where a dangerous form of painkiller has taken generations hostage, threatening the future ones?

Here is an in-depth story of opioids, their relentless producers who are obsessed by greed and know no reasonable boundaries — a story that reveals dark layers of international policy.