Abstract

Over the past two decades, opioid medication abuse among the U.S. population has expanded to a scourge extent. While the U.S. only accommodates 4% of the world's population, Americans consume 86% of the world's opioids, 99% of the worldwide hydrocodone supply, and 66% of the world's illegal drugs. Prescription opioids, which are currently the second most misused class of medication followed by cannabis. Results of the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) showed that a predicted 22.6 million people aged 12 or olderwere current or past month illicit drug users. Nearly 7 million among these used marijuana and 5.1 million used painkillers. Only 17.3% of users of nontherapeutic opioids indicated that they received the drugs through a prescription from a physician. The widely growing use of therapeutic opioids shows hydrocodone topping all prescriptions with 136.7 million prescriptions in 2011.with all narcotic analgesics reaching more than 238 million prescriptions. Opioid analgesics are now accountable for a higher mortality rate than suicide and motor vehicle accidents. The majority deaths (60%) occur in patients who received prescriptions based on prescribing guidelines by medical boards, whether small or higher doses of morphine. In comparison, 40% of deaths occur in individuals abusing the drugs obtained through illegal means.