Do doctors turn their patients into drug addicts? essay sample
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. Patients do not think that they consume too much pharmaceuticals on the daily basis unless they look at the total price of the prescription. What people need is a quick and easy relief – exactly the thing prescription drugs can give. Nevertheless, big pharmaceutical companies earn on patients, and so do doctors. Speculations about the deliberate overuse of prescription drugs make people believe that doctors turn their patients into drug addicts on purpose.
On the one hand, the theory mentioned above makes sense. Doctors and pharmaceuticals earn their money prescribing drugs. On the other hand, patients direly need their health issues resolved, and they would not hesitate about taking in anything that may help. In many cases, patients refer to self-medication or do not follow doctor’s instruction. Such behavior most likely drives the patient either to drug addiction or to drug tolerance. Both of them prevent people from full recovery complicating further medication. Therefore, the success or failure of treatment does not always lie on doctors.