Policy Brief Coursework Example

Policy Brief Part 1 Name Institutional Affiliation Policy Brief Part 1 The need to ease patient pain and enhance comfort played a key role in increasing the prescription of opioids as alternatives for painkillers. Moreover, pharmaceutical companies also added weight to the debate and the issues, whereby they mentioned that it is unlikely that the patients would become addicted to the use of opioids as pain relievers. The assurance from relevant research agencies and pharmaceutical companies led to a significantly higher rate of prescriptions for the drug. Over time, the overdose rates for opioids increased significantly. National Institute of Health (NIH) (2018), documents that more than 33000 Americans died because of opioid overdoses. Further analyses into the matter indicated that those who received opioid prescriptions were misusing them. As a result, roughly 10% of those who used the drug developed opioid use disorder. Worse is, approximately 4 to 6% of those that misuse opioid prescription, a transition to the use of heroin (NIH, 2018). The National Institute of Health (NIH) admits that the misuse and overdose of opioids is an evolving public crisis that ought to be addressed. Thus, the development of an initiative to help eliminate the dependency on opioids is touted to provide a long-lasting solution that would help end the menace. Underlying issues The underlying issue is the subject of the misuse and addiction of opioid. Statistics from the National Health Institute indicate that up to 2 million Americans depict the addition and misuse of opioids (Kolodny, Courtwright, Hwang, Kreiner, Eadie Clark & Alexander, 2015). Such individuals take opioid medication longer, and in higher doses than that prescribed. Supporting research, which would help address issues of opioid misuse and addiction, will help the medical teams to make informed decisions regarding the misuse of the drug and instead attain a meaningful and sustainable mechanism for sustai...