America, it is time to wake up and become aware of what is going on around us. Instead of being worried about how many times the president has been golfing since elected to office, we should be educating the public, especially the youth, about this epidemic. Opioid addiction is at an all-time high, and while you may be reading this thinking 'this addiction could never happen to me or my children or any of my friends,' but you would be wrong. This epidemic does not discriminate, the once-held theory that it affects more youths coming from a single-parent household is no longer the case. It is affecting every socioeconomic class across the board, without regard to race or gender.

For young adults, specifically the 18 to 25-year-old demographic, it could start off with something as minor as a torn ligament, or a fracture that results in needing surgery. There are doctors who rely on prescribing prescription pills for pain instead of trying other holistic approaches. This is only disabling the person from truly growing stronger from their injury. While I fully support the idea that if you truly need medicine then you should take it, but reliance on these drugs is only benefitting the companies who are producing them and the doctors who you have to pay to see for every visit.

Addiction to prescription drugs through an injury is not the only way that this dependency happens. The worst-kept secret in college life is that if you were to visit the library during midterms or finals week you will likely find numerous students using Adderall which was not prescribed for them. This prescription is specifically prescribed for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, more commonly known as ADHD. The “appeal” to taking this drug, for whom the drugs were not prescribed, is to help focus while studying or doing homework.

However, according to www.webmd.com/drugs, you should not be taking this medication if it is not prescribed to you, and it is illegal to share drugs that were prescribed to you. So, taking an Adderall on the occasions when you have limited time to study and really can’t focus seems pretty harmless right? Possibly, but so does continue to take the OxyContin that your doctor gave you six months ago for your back spasms every time you experience any slightly inconvenient pain. Addiction is a disease, and learning the dangers of addiction before exposure to situations where drugs can be abused is paramount.

This is a very real problem and I encourage parents to have a serious conversation with the teens and young adults in their life. As this problem isn’t exclusive to college students, discussing this with your peers as the more the issue is discussed, the less taboo the disease becomes. To every college student reading this who has considered taking an illegal drug because you have ‘entirely too much to study for’ and its weighing you down, but you resisted the temptation, thank you. It may be difficult, especially in the college campus environment, to go against what your friends and peers are doing, even if they claim the ability to focus for much longer than you.

This is not a problem that will go away overnight but together, one by one, we can become more aware of the dangers of drug misuse and start looking after one another and put an end to this opioid epidemic.