Veterans have become addicted to opioid drugs due to the lack of restriction to these drugs in the VA centers and military camps. These opioids also have caused mental and physical damage to its victims, resulting in many people believing that there must be other methods of treatment before exposing the veterans to the risk of drug addiction.

The dependence on opiates can be rooted in the one’s lack of restriction to these drugs. Lawrence (2014) highlights that physicians that work on military bases are consistently prescribing painkillers to troops in order for them to continue their tours (para. 3). Many, if not all, troop experience moments where they are in severe pain, whether it be from the combat training or effects of the war itself. However, many of these troops believe that it is their duty to fulfill their duties and finish their tours, no matter the risks, causing many of them to be prescribes these painkillers to numb their pain. Troops dependency on these drugs would be less likely if they did not have limitless access to them. Gavin West of the Opiates Safety Program highlights “Its always easier to prescribe a pill, … there is a large arsenal for treating patient’s pain” (as cited in Lawrence, 2014, para. 26). The soldier’s discharge from the military and his addiction to painkillers caused him to struggle to find work outside of the military forces. Painkiller drugs must be a last result for treatment solely because it is the greatest risk for addiction for any person.

Similarly, Szalavitz (2016) argues that drug addiction is a neurological disorder (para. 5). She speaks about her personal experience as an addict and connects it to her argument against the harsh treatment toward these type of people. She emphasizes her view that addiction can alter a person’s mental cognition and should be treated as such.

Drug addiction is a rising cause of death in the United States. Both The New York Times and PBS highlight the affects of drugs in specific regions of the country, focusing mainly on its impact on the people in the communities. New York Times journalist, M. Scott Brauer (2017) emphasizes the downfall of our society by stating that in current years “deaths from heroin alone has surpassed gun homicides” (para. 2). Brauer highlights the nature of the epidemic by discussing the increase in the amount of deaths, due to heroin overdose, is surpassing other high rated causes of death. The rise in deaths by drug overdose has caused many politicians to focus on how they might handle the problem in their communities if they are allowed into office. PBS’s Judy Woodruff (2016) discusses drug overdose with politicians, their opinion on the epidemic, and how they may be able to help the victims. Hillary Clinton, during a debate, states that she has met several grandparents that now are taking care of their grandchild as a result of the rising death rate of drug addiction (as cited in Woodruff, 2016, par. 34). Throughout the video, the reporter sits with several people that either have been a victim or witnessed someone being a victim of drug overdose. Many of the politicians in the video discuss their personal experiences with their friends and/or family that they have or have almost lost in the war of drugs and how they have used that experience in their campaign trail.

In Batman’s Bad Call, an excerpt from “Chasing the Scream” by Johann Hari, the author emphasizes that addiction is caused by a person’s necessity to fill their life with some type of meaning, as opposed to the chemical bond that is found within the drugs. A major example that Hari mentions is the Rat Park experiment created by Bruce Alexander to test this theory. Bruce compares the results of the experiment to the soldiers that served during the Vietnam War. In both cases, the subjects were, at one point, heavily reliant on the drug when they felt very much alone. However, when the person or creature was reintroduced to society their bond with the drug was diminished significantly, if not completely severed. He argues that the core reason that a person will live their life in addiction is due to their need to fill a void. Hari highlights Bruce’s theory that “the rats in solitary confinement and the soldiers in Vietnam weren’t being “hijaked” by the chemicals at hand.” Instead, it is the fact that the person is alone in their society that causes them to fall to the addiction and become a part of a society of the neglected. Hari defines addiction as “the psychological state of feeling you need the drug to give you the sensation of feeling calmer, or manic, or numbed, or whatever it does for you.” Hari uses Bruce’s results from his rat experiment to accentuate the importance of a healthy environment for people struggling with drug addiction.

http://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2017-01-03/as-the-opioid-epidemic-evolves-impacts-bleed-into-cocaine-overdose

In the link provided above, the article “What’s Behind the Rise in Cocaine-Linked Deaths?” talks about the rise in Opioid epidemic and its link to the amount of deaths caused each year. Kimberly Leonard, the author, is a health reporter with the Center of Public Integrity, an Association of Health Care Journalist, and a reporter for the U.S. News & World Report. The link below gives detailed information about Leonard’s professional career: https://muckrack.com/leonardkl

Her articles are deemed plausible because they are proofread by the company before publishing any articles. Also, she has not written solely by the U.S. News & World Report, but with several different, well-known, newspapers. She is a Senior healthcare Writer, which emphasizes the amount of knowledge and understanding it takes to be published by several of these news papers.