Females are starting to catch up to Males in Opioid Addiction
By: Kayla Allen

Opioid use has become an ongoing issue and continues to increase as a national epidemic, starting to affect more and more people each year and affecting communities as well. It has increased very significantly in areas such as Sonoma County, CA in the United States. Overdose and addiction rates in male and female have increased significantly in the last 20 years. The Opioid epidemic is a plague of addiction and overdose that has swept the nation. In the 90’s, Men were more likely than women to use almost all types of opioids resulting in ER visits, addiction and overdose. The legalization of drugs in the 90’s for medical purposes became addictive to some and that’s when the spike of addiction rose. Medical professionals reassured patients that pain killers were non-addictive. With over 7,00 women and 10,000 men died from prescription opioid overdose in 2016 that is about 19 females dying per day vs. males which are 27 dying per day.

In Sonoma county the rate of Opioid use has been the highest it has been in over the last 20 years. As of 2018 it resulted to more males using opioids vs. females. This is due to the legalization of painkillers and because they are legalized for medical purposes people take advantage of them and abusing the substances. It is also found that males use painkillers more than females because females have a higher pain tolerance rather than men making them crave more. This could become a problem for addiction when surgeries take place or when injuries happen and they are in need of painkillers. Sometimes they will get prescribed too many are left over with extra. That is when they start distributing it to others or in worse cases abusing them later on.

Although statistics prove that males are more likely to abuse opioids rather than females it is more likely for females to use them because they tend to have more medical issues that most males do. Due to most medical issues that females have they are prescribed medications and painkillers to help alleviate the pain. Even though most females use Opioids it is still more common for males to abuse them. As of 2012, over 76% males abuse and overdose on opioids or are affected by them. Male are more likely found to be misusing them because they use them to cope vs. females who have a lower risk of misusing them. Most people who abuse Opioids use them to cope with depression, anxiety, problems with family or money and many more reasons which cause them to overdose and kill themselves or end up hospitalized.