This document discusses the role of opioid education for youth. It finds that educating youth about opioids can help reduce misuse by making them aware of the risks of addiction and overdose. However, media coverage of opioids may also increase curiosity and accidental exposure. While prevention programs show promise, limitations include the possibility that education increases initial curiosity about drugs. Overall, early intervention through education may help delay first-time use and reduce health risks for youth.

1. 1
Joseph
Role of Opioid Education for the Youth
Esther Joseph
Miami Regional University ENC 2201— Report Writing and
Research MethodsResearch Paper
Dr. Uliana Gancea
April 11, 2020
Opioid Abuse by the Youth
Opioids are substances that act on the opioid receptors so as to
produce a morphine like outcome. They are used for pain relief,
including anesthesia. They are also used to suppress diarrhoea,
replacement therapy for opioid use disorder, suppressing cough
as well as for executions in the United States. Opioids apart
from being used for medical purposes they are also frequently
used for non-medical purposes. When induced they give a
euphoric effect and can also be used to prevent withdrawal
(Satterley & Anitescu, 2015). In the United States there have
been a lot of youths who use opioids for their euphoric effects.
Due to their addictive nature, they have seen a lot of youths
addicted to the substances which many result to fatal and
adverse effects on the substance abuser.
Opioids are responsible for 1.7 deaths in 10, 000 people.
Most of these people are young adults between 18 years to 25
years. Due to the rise in the use of this substances there have
been introduction of educating the youths about the drugs. This
is to create awareness as well as educate the youth on what to
expect if they get themselves mixed up with the practice. In this
paper we pose the question, what is the role of opioid education
to the youth? We will talk about the impact that the program
will have on the youths, be it positive or negative (Knaggs,
2019).

2. Opioids act by binding to opioid receptors, these are found
principally in the peripheral and central nervous system as well
as the gastrointestinal tract. These receptors mediate both the
somatic as well as the psychoactive effects that opioids cause.
Opioid drugs include antagonists like naloxegol which are used
for opioid induced constipation and partial agonists like the anti
diarrhoea drug loperamide (McDONOUGH, 2016). Due to
opioids nature of being addictive and might result in fatal
overdose, most of them are controlled substances. In the year
2013, between 28 and 38 million people were using opioids
illicitly. That is 0.6% to 0.8% of the global population between
the ages 15 and 65. In the year 2011, it was estimated that 4
million people in the United States used opioids recreationally
and were dependent on them. As of 2015, increased numbers of
recreational use and addiction were attributed to over
prescription of the medication and inexpensive illicit heroin.
Literature review
The National Institutes of Health has a healing initiative
for over 50 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain.
Opioids medications are the most common for treating pain
although effective and safe non opioid options for pain
management are lacking. The used of opioids to treat acute and
chronic pain has contributed to approximately 10.3 million
people aged 12 years and older in the united states in 2018 who
abused opioids (Hubbell & Reid, 2018). In 2018, National
Institutes of Health, in consultation with a broad range of
stakeholders, identified a set of research that when prioritized
will reflect urgent unmet needs across the lifespan.
Areas that show promising scientific opportunity as well as
concrete strategies that are very possible of providing durable
and rapid solutions to the opioids crisis. Through this initiative,
National Institutes of Health supports research to enhance pain
management as well as improving treatment for opioid addiction
and misuses (McDONOUGH, 2016). With improved treatment,
there will be an added positive results rate and more youth will
be motivated to go through the process.

3. The initiative includes research focus areas that are led by
12 National Institutes of Health ICs supporting hundreds of
projects that reflect the full spectrum of research from basic
science direct to the implementation research. This research
serves the overall same purpose as that of opioid education
among the youth (Satterley & Anitescu, 2015). They both seek
to have a world that is free of opioid dependency and abuse.
It is important to understand that it is not easy for anyone to
recover form an addiction and as so is the case with opioid
abusers. If it can be rectified in their youth years that will mean
that it will be less hard that it would have been if they tried to
quit the habit at an older age. Initiatives that help this to happen
should be given support by citizens as well as the whole
government (Knopf, 2017). In the youth years since one has not
used opioids for a long time, there are reversible damages to the
brain and body which would only get worse after years of use.
The researches being carried out should also be accompanied by
new rules about purchasing of opioids. There should be a better
research to find out how to make medicines that lack the
components known to give the euphoric feeling in opioid
abusers (Pfeiffer, 2019). This means that most of these drugs
will need a prescription to access which will surely reduce how
much they are abused by the youths.
Method
This study used a meta-analysis approach; the information
gathered through this approach from the relevant eligible
sources findings used for this study, the results obtained from
the various sources summarized when compiling this report.
Various scientific studies and journals, to collect the required
data, the data then synthesized and compiled. The Studies used
in this study entailed the ones that featured a randomized trial
method. Whereas different studies were analyzed, the primary
focus was on the ones that involved experiments that lasted
more than a month. Also, ones that had recorded results before

4. the study and compared the outcomes with the results obtained
after that. A case study approach was used to analyze previous
works by researchers and the available secondary data. The
study's primary focus was on both qualitative and quantitative
data collected from first-hand experiments and observations.
The study used a meta-analysis search strategy on various
databases, including but not limited to google scholar, where
original papers relating to the study and that investigated opioid
education for the youth as a contemporary real-life
phenomenon were identified. This approach was preferable
because it was not only cost and time effective but also
provided an in-depth analysis of the study topic (Paterson et al.,
2001). The data collection process took a two-step approach
that entailed the identification of credible and eligible sources
of information relating to the topic and identified through a
filtering process using the study’s keywords (Paterson et al.,
2001). The keywords used in the process included; "opioid
education," "youth,"‘’ contemporary real-life phenomenon.’’
After the determination of the relevant and eligible studies that
suited the selected keywords, the process moved to the next step
that was to assess their respective years of publication as the
study only required sources that were less than 5yrs old. After
that, the content of the studies analyzed, their abstracts perused
to establish the ones that suited the study objective. Later,
relevant data gathered from the chosen sources, then
synthesized, and analyzed to create new data. Emphasizing on
studying individual youth’s lived experiences within the world
of drugs, more specifically, on youth’s experiences ranging
from emotion, perception, and imagination regarding the use of
opioids.
Results
There has been a recommendable decline in opioid misuse
as have been indicated by the results from a study conducted
under the senior and junior category of people who engage in
opioid abuse. The decline is reported to be as a result of

5. measures which currently govern prescription opioid exposure.
In the past, many adolescents could access opioid prescriptions
from negligence in handling opioid prescription by users. Also,
the decline can be reported to be as a result of periodic
awareness that has been created peer educators in educating
youths about these substances and their adverse effects towards
someone. The use of media in creating awareness on the impact
of substance abuse has also contributed immensely in the
decline of opioid misuse.
Adolescents are at high risk of engaging in substance abuse.
Many students reported that adolescent stage is a stage of self-
realization that is highly confusing and is associated with mixed
emotions, thus exposing teenagers to take drugs as a means to
escape reality. Since brain reward center development mainly
occurs during the adolescent stage, teenagers tend to start
discriminating more carefully between rewards. The ability to
distinguish between meaningful and fewer rewards is considered
a significant factor that has motivated youths to substance abuse
(Reid, Wild, & Bozarth, 2020. Teens are motivated toward
obtaining meaningful rewards. When they get these rewards,
they can afford to purchase drugs which eventually make them
be addicts in future. This can explain why peak stages of
substance use initiation occur during adolescent stages and
early childhood stages (McDONOUGH, 2016).
Adolescents are unskilled and unable to conduct executive
functions such as self-monitoring, impulse control and error
corrections which are used in the decision-making process.
These functions typically take time to develop and only occur at
later stages of development in human life. This usually makes it
hard for adolescents to make right decisions, and they become
at risk of substance abuse than adults. Immaturity of the
prefrontal cortex during early stages of human development
tends to leave the brain reward centre more vulnerable, thus
making it develop changes which might result in a neurologic
disorder of addiction. Premature prefrontal may result in
substance use disorder among teenagers than adults since the

6. risk of developing a substance use disorder is related to the
initiation stage of drug use. Delayed substance use initiation
into adulthood is associated with a reduced risk of one ever
developing a SUD (Reid, Wild, & Bozarth, 2020),
This is one of the reasons and importance for the government
early interventions and prevention strategies that are designed
to delay initiation as well as a reduced use in this group.
Environmental factors cause psychological vulnerability to
substance use. These environmental factors include the
availability, promotion and modeling of substance use behaviors
(Bain & Kornetsky, 2020) . Teenagers are typically sensitive to
the influence of cultural messaging. The three choices are
driven by either the availability or also cultural acceptability;
this includes the perceived harm they bring.
Discussion
Substance use results into vast majority of life years lost
due to illnesses, disability and premature deaths among those
aged 15 to 24. It is arguably the most important modifiable
health behavior that has impacted the youth. Due to the times
we are in, youth are faced by a vast landscape of more potent
products, new delivery methods, and synthetic alternatives such
as electronic cigarettes, fentanyl, codeine products and potent
cannabinoids. These are far more addictive than psychoactive
substances that were available to teenagers in the past (Reid,
Wild, & Bozarth, 2020). Marijuana, alcohol and tobacco
products are more commonly used in high school students as
compared to opioids abuse thus the secondary prevention that is
to say, initiating treatment of other substance use way before
the use of opioids ever begin as logical strategy.
The American academy of pediatrics has called on pediatricians
to screen all young adults as well as adolescents for use of
substance use and manage the whole spectrum, starting from
preinitiation to SUD. Integrating SUD treatments within a
pediatrics primary care, as well as engaging primary care
providers in managing of substance use as they do to people
with other disorders, it has the potential to radically revise as

7. well as dramatically increasing access to SUD treatment for the
youths (Drake, 2017).
Among adolescents, Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) are not as
common as tobacco, marijuana and alcohol disorders although
the death rate of patients with untreated OUD is high. The
treatment of OUD include prescription medications, there is use
of model that combines both primary care management as well
as an integrated behavioral health specialists while at the same
time having an expert backup which has demonstrated as being
acceptable in the pediatric primary care as well as being
feasible with the subspecialist support (Pfeiffer, 2019).
Limitations
There are specific implications that have been realized in
an attempt to create awareness on substance abuse. The use of
media and other sources to develop knowledge has influenced
teenagers negatively towards substance use. Many youths have
been curious about the drugs and at some point are tempted to
try the drugs out without considering their implications.
Students also obtain information during media
commercialization of the drugs and have been able to locate
how to acquire and use the drugs. This is the reason why many
teenagers are involved in opioid abuse as opposed to other
medications that are not being televised against marijuana and
heroin.
Even though recognizing that my results cannot determine
casualty, it seems prudent for clinicians to not only discuss with
teenagers the direct dangers of substance abuse but also review
the observed factors that can expose adolescents to abuse drugs.
When physicians and other psychologists identify youths with
opioid prescription abuse, they should have a heightened
awareness associated with how opioid misuse can affect their
health, class performance and socialization thereby they can
give potential opportunities for prevention and education. The
educators should consider the higher likelihood of substance
abuse on adolescents than adults. Additionally, psychiatrists
evaluating patients for opioid misuse should take into

8. consideration the risk factor of drug abuse such as suicide
attempt.
There were a few limitations that should be considered when
interpreting results. First, the study was cross-sectional, thus
limiting the possibility of determining the casualty of outcomes.
However, this study provides predisposing factors associated
with opioid misuse. Moreover, additional covariates such as
performance in class and socioeconomic status may not have
been considered in this study but may have implications on the
results. Also, sources of motivation for opioids were not
assessed in this study.
Conclusion
These limitations notwithstanding, I report that
adolescents who are involved in opioid misuse are more likely
to have been influenced by one or any of these predisposing
factors, all of which contribute to significant adverse health
outcomes. Future efforts should be directed on better
understanding and directionality of adolescents that are reported
to be at higher risk of engaging in substance abuse.
Furthermore, counseling of addicted opioid users minimizes the
overall dangers and effects of opioid misuse.

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