CNN Money
February 22,2018 The Opioid Crisis is draining America's workforce http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/22/news/economy/workforce-opioid-crisis/index.html Lydia DePillis The article written by Lydia DePillis published on CNN Money is about the Opioid Crisis and how it is draining America’s workforce. The article talks about many situations of people doing Opioids which produces morphine-like effects such as pain relief or anesthesia on the user. The user gets addicted and they eventually get high on Opioids. When you have a mental state like this your judgement is clouded and you may do stupid things like rob a bank which can lead to the loss of your job and even jail time. This article includes an interview conducted by CNN with a past time Opioid addict. The interviewee is named Mike Harsanyi. He has been struggling with a heroin addiction, which is an opioid, for the past 6 years. After spending two spells in prison, Harsanyi is living a sober and clean life. He has been residing in Maryland for 5 months and currently looking for steady employment. The article then goes on to talk about jobs in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County which has an unemployment of 3.1% which is one of the United State’s lowest employment rates. However after doing some time for an armed robbery he did while high in 2015, Harsanyi has been turned down for jobs at many places such as Valvoline and Jiffy Lube. Sadly he is only occasionally able to pick up work as a tile setter for another recovering addict he met through his 12 step program. Not only is this effecting Harsanyi, but also other people looking to get employed. The article then goes on to talk about how a Princeton economist Alan Krueger found the increase in prescribing rates account for 20%-25% of the approximately five-point drop in the labor force participation. Krueger says that other countries face severe cases of drug addictions however they don’t face the type of opioid crisis that the U.S is facing. The Princeton economist shared some of his studies. It is a color coordinated map which shows the intersection of opioid prescription rates and declines in labor force participation. The map’s overall results tells the viewer that much of Appalachia and Rust Belt have economically depressed places, which has become similar with the narrative of opioid addiction as a disease of the downtrodden, fueled by joblessness and despair. Recently an economist from the University of Virginia by the name of Christopher Ruhm suggests that joblessness may have opened a large portal to the abuse of opioids, but this epidemic was also heavily spread through the availability of prescription drugs. This event happened due to the cause of joblessness and also from recent research, the availability of these drugs over the counter assigned to normal citizens by pharmacists. But how did people become so addicted to drugs in the first place. This begins with the addiction and introduction of the drug called Opium. Opium is a dried latex obtained from the opium poppy.Opium latex contains approximately 12 percent of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other opioids. Opium was first found and made in the present day UK. It then spread to China by trade and by smugglers and the Chinese got addicted and death rates were upped by around 15% of the normal death rate. Opium eventually got spread world wide which is why there is currently an Opium Crisis in the US. I think that the Opium Crisis is something that should definitely handled for the better. There are two parties, the people that need the opium in order to survive and are actually prescribed by their doctor. Then there are the abusers. I feel like an effective situation for the people who medically use the opium could be for the scientists to find a different substance that causes the same effects as opium for the people that need it however there is twist. The twist is that the drug cannot be used for addictive purposes. This will render the users of the opioids empty handed which is honestly better for all. I have no idea how much this will cost, how much research this will take and if this is actually even possible. But if it is, I think this will be a more than logical approach to the Opioid Crisis. I will be commenting on Cheyenne Faulkner’s Dp as well as Matthew Mau’s DP
2 Comments
Cheyenne
3/8/2018 07:22:17 pm
This seems like it is a very stressing issue, do you have any ideas on how this problem could be improved. How do you think that this could affect other countries as well.
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Libby Herzog
3/8/2018 11:15:26 pm
I remember reading something about opioids and the addiction to them in the past as well. I agree with what you say at the end that there are two uses the abusers and the people who actually need it. I believe that with every drug though. Do you believe that maybe this is happening in other countries as well?
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