Dr's role in the rising prescription drug abuse

Before I begin, please allow me to clarify that I sympathise with the plight of my opponent's family member, and that I am equally angry at the poor conduct of her doctor. However, this will not affect the way I approach the resolution. As my opponent has not proposed a formal resolution in the form of a declarative statement, I will take the topic sentence of his paragraph as the resolution:The rise in prescription drug abuse should fall into the hands of the Dr. Thus the burden of proof is on my honourable opponent to prove that doctors have to bear the greatest responsibility in the rise in prescription drug abuse. As my opponent has not delineated a set of rules for the debate, I will take the liberty of presenting my opening arguments and refuting some of the arguments my opponent has presented. I will welcome any attempts to present and clarify the rules of this debate by my opponent, for (s)he is the instigator. Constructive arguments1) Doctors are not responsible for the underlying causes of drug abuseThe motives behind prescription drug abuse can generally be summarised thus: (1) To feel good or 'high', and experience the metal effects of the drug To relax or relief pressure To reduce appetite, boost vigilance or improve academic performance As a result of addiction To 'fit in' Even if doctors did not misprescribe, as long as these motives exist, there would always be ways for drug abusers to obtain drugs, such as by receiving drugs from those who have not fully used their medication during previous treatment processes. Conversely, without such motives, there would be no incentive for drug abusers to abuse drugs, even if there were doctors prescribing drugs improperly. This shows that doctors should not be held responsible for drug abuse itself, which should be blamed on the abusers. The rise in drug abuse should be attributed to reasons why more people are having such motivations, and not to the doctors who are simply doing their job by prescribing drugs. 2) Doctors are not responsible for the availability of drugs to abusers. The majority of teenagers who abuse prescription drugs get their drugs from relatives or friends who have been prescribed the drugs; thus doctors did not prescribe any drugs to them. (2) Thus doctors are not responsible for the fact that they have these drugs at their disposal. Even in the event where the abuser was prescribed the medicine and decided to over-dose or to use the drugs for other purposes (such as 'getting high'), the doctors have only prescribed drug according to the patient's needs: if those drugs had been taken exactly as prescribed, there would be no quantity of medicine available for future abuse. Therefore, they should not be held responsible for the availability of excess medicine, which ought to be the fault of the patients who did not take drugs according to doctors' instructions. Rebuttals 1) Explanation at the beginning'So, they see their health care provider, after the pain contract is signed by both patient and Dr, and are prescribed many forms of narcotics and I am baffled at how, Dr's cannot figure out why narcotics abuse continues to rise. 'My opponent states, at the beginning of the paragraph, that the prescription of narcotics by doctors causes the rise in prescription drug abuse. However, (s)he has not yet given a clear explanation of how this has happened. It appear that (s)he has not explained this causal link clearly. By 'I am baffled at how', (s)he seems to imply that the causal link is obvious and 'goes without saying'; however, I fail to see this relationship. 2) Example of the family member's incidentMy opponent has given a detailed account of the personal experience of a loved one. However, I contend that one isolated example alone cannot prove the resolution, which is on the rise of prescription drug abuse, and implies the rise of drug abuse in society as a whole. To conclude that rampant prescription drug abuse is caused by doctors is, therefore, to over-generalise. Moreover, my opponent has not shown that his or her family member's case was related to drug abuse at all. She did not 'abuse' her drug in any way; she was simply following the prescriptions of a registered doctor, and in fact, she used fewer drugs than needed on some days. This alone is sufficient to prove that she had not abused the drugs. My opponent states that she had become addicted to the narcotics. While this may be true - it may not be, for she has terminated all her uses of narcotics and resolved not to utilise such medicine again - it does not follow that this is a case of drug abuse, which is the action of using drugs one should not be using, or using drugs in excess quantities. Addition is merely a state in which a body has become dependent on a substance or activity, or to be more precise, 'Addiction is a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance' (3), and there is no necessary implication that the addict acts on the addiction. ObservationsMy final observation is that even if my opponent can show that this type of misprescription leads to drug abuse, it does not necessarily result in a rise thereof; it is therefore his/her responsibility to show that there has been an increase in misprescriptions which has led to an increase (positive change) in the number of drug abusers. (1) . http://cliniquemedecine.com...(2) . http://www.drugabuse.gov...(3) . http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...