In the editorial of Jason Merritt's "4 ways to reduce deaths from prescription drugs", Merritt is making a firm argument about reducing the deaths caused by prescription drugs. As far as I’m concerned, the numbers of death caused by these drugs are far more than I had thought. Sadly, it seems to take a death of one of the most popular stars, Whitney Houston, for people to look deeper into this problem. Merritt explains four ways that he suggests will help, or lessen, the number of deaths caused by taking drugs such as Xanax, OxyContin, and Vicodin. His use of logical appeal by throwing out statistics really strengthens his argument and proves that the number of people dying is quite ridiculous. These drugs cause 373,000 overdoses a year. Xanax, an anxiety drug, mixed with alcohol is a deadly combination. So why do doctors have no hesitation prescribing these drugs, knowing that the number is so high it is almost equivalent to the number of deaths related to car accidents?
I strongly agree with Merritt’s claim, as seeing that I was in addiction for several years and am now in recovery and I have experienced the pure danger of these drugs. Merritt suggests Prescription monitoring, which has already been established but not all doctors seem to use it. Is this just a joke to them? I feel as though they should take use of these databases that are made to prevent people from re-filling prescriptions using many doctors so they can get as much as they please. Education, is another thing Merritt suggests implying that doctors don’t know exactly how dangerous these certain drugs are. I fully agree with that, considering these drugs have been around for a long time so I can understand why doctors feel no need to research them after they have been used for many, many years. Law enforcement I feel already plays a part in this. If you were to get arrested with such pills in your possession, the officers will check and make sure you have a prescription and are not buying them off of the street. Seeing as officers are in much care for our safety, their consciousness of making sure you are entitled to the drugs should be quite a confirmation of how dangerous they really are. Medicaid has been known to pay for these drugs, which brings us to Insurance Vigilance. Are insurance companies really offering to pay for whatever drugs these doctors believe we need? It is quite simple to lie to a doctor about anxiety, in order to fill a simple prescription. A simple prescription yes, but a deadly one at the same time.
Merritt full-on supports this argument of suggestive methods to slow down the use of prescription drugs by using all sorts of opinions and evidence. Why is it that once a star overdoses on certain drugs, that is when we really look into the effect of them? This should be something the world is conscious about regardless if someone famous dies or not. These drugs are killing 70 people a day, I firmly agree the government should put a halt to this.
I agree, if the patients who have gotten prescribed to Xanax, OxyContin, or Vicodin they should definitely take it as directed. Not to use it as a drug, or to abuse the use of such strong pills. Hopefully everybody takes Whitney Houston's death serious and not think they are invincible to certain things; thinking "oh, that could never happen to me".
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