Tuesday 28 July 2020
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SISA continues to alert its members and others about the menace of opioid abuse and over-prescribing. RTWSA is to be commended for its timely and sophisticated approach to raising awareness via its funding and coordination of the development of the campaign.
The Reach for the Facts website provides tools and information to raise awareness of opioids and their effects. Included in this is the following:
What are opioids?
Opioids can be a type of prescription medicine often provided for severe pain. Common types of prescription opioids include codeine, oxycodone, fentanyl and morphine.
Prescription opioids work by depressing or slowing down the function of the central nervous system – your brain and spinal cord – to relieve pain. As well as working on trying to reduce pain, they also affect other parts of your body.
Prescription opioids affect everyone differently, but there are side effects commonly connected with this group of medicine. In fact, 80% of people who take opioids for three or more months will experience a negative side effect.
The website includes a database tool to allow anyone to enter the name of a drug and find out if it is an opioid.
We urge all of our members to make use of the Reach for the Facts website and the resources it offers.
Click here to access the website and its resources.