What causes opioid addiction, and why is it so tough to combat? | Mike Davis
TED Health
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How Do Opioid Drugs Affect the Body?
Opioid drugs are very effective pain killers, but they are also highly addictive. In the 19 eighties and nineties, pharmaceudical companies began to market opioid pain killers aggressively in an attempt to down play their addictive potential. The num of opioid pain killers prescriptions sky rocketed, and so did cases of opioid addiction - a crisis that continues to day. To understand why opioids are so addictive, it helps to trace how these drugs affect the human body from the first dose through repeated use to what happens when long term use stops.
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