Solution Essay

Outline

I. Introduction

II. Problem

III. Raising Awareness

IV. Education

V. Prevention

VI. Treatment

VII. Counterarguments

VIII. Conclusion

Prescribed Drug Abuse in Oklahoma: Designing a Strategy for Addressing the Issue

Introduction

Imagine a very close Oklahoma relative of yours in lots of pain struggling with towing the line of prescription drug abuse (PDA). Next imagine them not being strong enough to resist the addiction and dying as a result of it. Now imagine being told that you have been placed on a committee to challenge the states legislature on how to deal with this deadly issue. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute, can any of you say that you have never taken a prescription drug of any kind? According to the Oklahoma Policy Institute experts at okpolicy.org, prescription drug overdoses are the leading cause of injury death for Oklahomans ages 25-64 (Putnam, 2014). Our state clearly has lots of work to do in order to minimize this deadly statistic. I have been working in the medical field for over 15 years as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant/Phlebotomist; I have witness individuals of all ages coming in to the hospital for various prescription drug abuse related offenses. So I know for a fact that the problem we have here in Oklahoma with prescription drug abuse is a dead serious one. Therefore, in order to convince Oklahoma authorities and citizens to support taking the necessary actions to reduce the states prescription drug abuse problem, we must first address ways to better educate our Oklahomans, starting with topic awareness, thorough educating, stricter prevention techniques, and proper treatment methods.

Problem

Substance abuse is, unfortunately, quite a common phenomenon in the 21st century reality (Holmes, 2012). While, for the most part, drugs are rather hard to obtain, with prescribed drug abuse, however, the situation becomes more complicated, since the doctor provides the patient with an open...