QRCA Views Magazine, Spring 2016

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28 QRCA VIEWS SPRING 2016
Many of us, like my former colleague,
hold stereotypes about what heroin users
are like and may even assume that their
overdoses are morally deserved. But in
reality, people who abuse medications or
illegal drugs look and sound like you no
matter who you are. Data from the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) show that every
demographic slice is affected and that
most of those who died from an opiate
overdose were white, suburban (often
middle class) people between 25 and 54
years old. At least half of those who died
overdosed on prescription analgesics.
Perfect Storm
The fast rise in drug and alcohol abuse
has been influenced by economics and
societal trends. “Popular” drugs trend
with availability and price. For example,
heroin’s popularity was bolstered by the
last decade’s influx from Afghanistan
that drove its price well below the street
value of prescription drugs. Meanwhile,
we saw (and are still seeing) substantial
leakage out of our medical system as
U.S. prescribers write more scripts for
opiate painkillers each year than there
are adults in the country. QRCs who
have the opportunity to “listen in” on
discussions by insurers and health sys-
tems know that at multiple places in our
healthcare system, physicians and
administrators are discussing and imple-
menting changes to their policies as well
as how they incentivize providers. Their
goal is to safely address a systemic over-
reliance on pain-killing medicines.
Even as access to pharmaceutical
drugs tightens and street drugs get
cheaper, we see a confluence of social
and cultural trends that conspires to
make younger generations more vulner-
able to addiction. Surveys by the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA, the
Federal agency charged with improving
the quality and availability of prevention,
treatment, and rehabilitative services)
show teens and twentysomethings’ per-
ception of harm from misusing drugs
and alcohol declining while the conse-
quences as measured in related deaths,
emergency room visits, and arrests soar.
The thinking goes something like, “if it’s
legal (somewhere), it must be safe to
use.” And, by extension, “if one pill
makes me feel good, then more pills will
make me feel even better.”
Many of the parents of these children
are conflicted about the harm of drug
abuse and drinking—after all, they did
it, too. Often referred to as “helicopter”
parents, many have overprotected their
children from failure, unhappiness, and
consequences. The ramifications of
being protected from disappointments,
of not hearing the word “no,” and from
being given “every opportunity” has
resulted in “gifted” teens and young
adults who don’t know how to inter-
nally manage the natural bouts of anxi-
ety, performance stress, frustration, and
sadness that are part of growing up.
Some channel their feelings of chronic
stress into getting better grades and
gaining acceptance to top schools with a
soul-numbing, tunnel-vision focus that
Dying from Overdoses and Other Mental Health Trends CONT INUED
In 2013, (drug overdoses were) close to 44,000
Americans, far more than the 35,000 who died in auto
crashes that year or the 16,000 who were murdered.
Hash oil - popular for its psycoactive potency
Helicopter parents can over protect