DRUG USE IS ABUSE (CODEINE)

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Prescription drugs can cause negative effects such as addiction, tolerance, physical dependence, and even death. Anyone taking medication needs to be aware of these hazards, especially people that abuse prescription drugs. The problems related to codeine abuse have an effect world wide; therefore it is a problem that society cannot ignore.

What is codeine you may ask? Codeine is a sleep inducing and analgesic derived from morphine. Many studies say that codeine is only good for what it is prescribed for. Codeine is normally used to cure pain. Using large and frequent dosses of the pain-killer may actually produce heightened sensitivity to pain, without the same level of relief offered by morphine. Codeine use is not controlled in the same way as morphine and as it is the most widely used strong pain reliever medication in the world.

Although codeine is legal in the United States the FDA and DEA supervise its manufacturing because it is only legal with a prescription. When codeine is used without a prescription it is considered illegal because it is such an addictive drug. In 2013, the Chicago Tribune published an article about the negative effects of prescription codeine to children. the FDA stated "These children had evidence of being ultra-rapid metabolizers of codeine, which is an inherited ability that causes the liver to convert codeine into life-threatening or fatal amounts of morphine in the body." 

This is the way that it is effecting kids that are prescribed to it, so imagine the way that are effecting teens that are not prescribed and are just either getting it off of the street or using their loved ones prescribed. Young teens are buying drugs from off the street are taking them and abusing them. Codeine use is also leading to the abuse of heroin. The heroin rates are rising. Doctors say, "In the past decade the annual number of deaths in which some form of codeine has been implicated has almost tripled, from 46 in 2001 to 120 in 2012. That's not far short of the 154 deaths in 2011 caused by the opioid-like Tramadol, a prescription-only painkiller the Home Office is now looking at reclassifying as a Class C drug." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2424740/Addicted-counter-opium-Few-realise-codeine-headache-pills-come-source-heroin--evidence-reveals-more-getting-hooked.html)

Despite its addictive nature, codeine is still  a weak enough opiate that it’s the most prescribed drug in the world. Codeine is the first opiate derivative that has been made an over the counter drug. that it’s the most prescribed drug in the world. 

Codeine is included in most medications that are needed to relieve pain and also has been added to many cancer and HIV medication which shows that the millions if not billions of people in the world depend on the drug. Despite the abuse of the drug recreationally, codeine still has helped the world of science for pain relief drugs.  

Codeine has been a very harsh drug destroying our community. They way it is used now compared to the way it was used back in the day is not good. You codeine for illegal things has not been right and never will. Please stop using drugs. DRUG USE IS ABUSE.      

References:                                                     
http://www.pamf.org/teen/risk/drugs/narcotics/codeine.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2424740/Addicted-counter-opium-Few-realise-codeine-headache-pills-come-source-heroin--evidence-reveals-more-getting-hooked.html
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