Opioids and the Golden Triangle

I think something that has really intrigued me this year and this class has been revolving around opioids. President Trump decided to focus on the opioid crisis. Opioids usage has been an issue in America. As we learned in class, it can be over prescribed and be sold/ put in the wrong hands. As I looked up just now, over 52,000 deaths annually are related to an overdose of opioids. But not only that, but a group did their background report on the Golden Triangle. I never realized a huge sum of our opioids are coming from the Golden Triangle in southeast Asia. And also how sketchy/illegal this business is.

The reason I am so intrigued by the talk of opioids is because I'm doing my nursing clinical rotations at the Veteran's hospital here in Minneapolis. I've talked to a lot of vets who served in the Vietnam war (same place as that golden triangle) and used heroine in Vietnam. They returned back to America, a country who did not accept or take care of them, with crippling mental health issues and a new found addiction to opioids. The VA offers this opioid program helping veterans with their addiction and possibly titrating them off opioids. In addition, I've had dozens of patients who use hydrocodone or oxycodone around the clock for pain. 

Opioids are serious business. As a future health care provider, potentially working with veterans in the future, it is important to remember the drawbacks to using opioids. Sure, it is beneficial to patients with cancer, but overall, we need to evaluate how critical opioids are. Are there other pain medications we can prescribe to patients? What about integrative health options like essential oils? How can we better take care of our veterans when they return home from war so we don't have a huge sum of vets with opioid addicitions?