Talk:Opioid epidemic in the United States

Wiki Education assignment: Senior Seminar
— Assignment last updated by Justice Junky (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Race Demographic Content
The sources supporting certain portions of this section are outdated. Some of the information comes from 2014. There has also been a significant amount of research done recently on the disproportionate impact that the opioid epidemic has on Black and Native American Communities. I believe that it is worth making a few edited to this section and also adding some more recent sources that I have compiled from various academic sources. Justice Junky (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Assuming this is your first account, I would strongly suggest putting your ideas here on the talk page first. This is a fairly contentious topic, and introducing new information on race is likely to be controversial, so it is best to give others the opportunity to look at your sources and proposed changes ahead of time, simply to prevent drama.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 09:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the advice. I have been researching this topic for the past 6 months and I have finally put together a few paragraphs that I would like to add to the Race Demographic portion of this page. I do not want to change anything that is already there I would just like to add some updated information that I have found. I typed everything out in my sandbox, and I would like to share it here for your input before I add it to the page. I would appreciate any and all feedback as I am doing this for educational purposes in a class that I am taking.
 * Though previous statistics show that non-Hispanic White Americans have been affected by the opioid epidemic more than other racial/ethnic groups in the United States, recent statistics show that non-Hispanic Black Americans are experiencing a sharper increase in opioid-overdose deaths. The annual percentage change of opioid overdose deaths among Black Americans increased to 26.16 from 2012 to 2018 while White Americans only experienced an 18.96 increase from 2013-2016 and even had an annual percentage change decrease to 5.07 from 2016 to 2018. The challenges that non-Hispanic Black Americans face have a disparate impact on the rates of opioid-overdose related deaths when compared to non-Hispanic White Americans who have not dealt with the challenges of structural racism. Recent research has linked the rise in opioid-overdose deaths among Black Americans to the lack of safety, security, stability, and survival in their communities. Those missing pieces in these communities can be linked to a host of things including exposure to structural racism, lack of access to resources, and widespread mistrust in the healthcare system.
 * Structural racism continues to have a lasting impact on predominantly Black communities in the United States. Racial segregation is one of the main forms of structural racism that has been linked to the increase in opioid-overdose related deaths among non-Hispanic Black Americans. Racial segregation does not only impact access to social and economic resources. It also has an impact on public health and disrupts access to health care. The impact that racial segregation has health care spills over to the access of substance use services. This leads to Black Americans having a more difficult time when seeking treatment for opioid use. Structural racism has also led to the consistent misdirection of funds and the over-funding of criminal legal systems within predominantly non-Hispanic Black communities. Instead of funding being used to improve substance abuse treatment and prevention, funds have been used to criminalize drugs and impose harsh penalties on Black community members. The policies put in place years ago have led to stereotyping and fear within Black communities that prevents Black Americans from seeking substance abuse treatment. In America there are continual concerns regarding racial biases against non-Hispanic Black Americans when it comes to drug enforcement. Black Americas have historically been more criminalized for opioid related offenses, and despite calls for change there are still lasting impacts of this today.
 * Recent studies have shown a real need for equality when it comes to opioid abuse treatment and prevention. Medication-assisted treatments like buprenorphine have been proven to help treat substance use. The facilities that offer this treatment tend to be in communities with predominantly non-Hispanic White populations and they are rarely seen in predominantly non-Hispanic Black communities despite their proven effectiveness. The national focus being on prescription of opioids for pain management is a leading cause for non-Hispanic Black Americans receiving unequal treatment opportunities. Data has shown that this is not the main issue in every city/state, which shows the need for a more local data driven approach to opioid abuse intervention. Justice Junky (talk) 20:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Race in America, sec 1
— Assignment last updated by PurplePhoneLaptop (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Over-prescribing of opioid anagesics by clinicians to their patients is an unsupported mythology
This note responds to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic_in_the_United_States

I write widely as a subject matter expert on US public health policy for regulation of prescription opioid analgesics, and of clinicians who employ them in managing severe pain among their patients. I have 27 years experience as a volunteer patient advocate and medical literature analyst, having authored or co-authored over 200 papers, articles, and interviews in this subject area. I sit on editorial boards of two journals and elements of my work have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and mass media.

From this background, I offer three resources that directly contradict the misinformation now incorporated on the Wikipedia page addressing the opioid "epidemic" in the United States:

First, https://www.kevinmd.com/2023/07/everything-the-government-thinks-it-knows-about-the-opioid-crisis-is-wrong.html

This summary can be read in five minutes. It appears in America's most widely read healthcare newsletter.

Second: https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/4860/99193547580

Resources for Clinicians In Pain Medicine: Correcting Medical Mythologies On Prescription of Opioid Analgesics This paper in turn offers 81 references chosen to assist clinicians to defend themselves from grossly inappropriate charges in the currently dominant D.E.A. witch hunt against doctors and their patients in pain.

Third: https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/4726/99193547448

Doctors Diagnosing Addiction: Are the Blind Leading the Blind?

The second and third papers above appear in the Archives of Medicine of the European Society of Medical Doctors. Both are open-access articles distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original source and author are credited. Red Lawhern (talk) 12:11, 2 April 2024 (UTC)