Policy Analysis Paper

Policy Analysis Paper

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Policy Analysis Paper

Introduction

“Substance abuse” is one of the major problem in America today. The Support Act or Substance Use Disorder Prevention is an act that was meant for the prevention of people who were opium addicts (Sloboda et al. 2019). The act was signed by President Trump on October 24, 2018. He called it the single largest bill that can combat the drug crisis in the history of American Culture (Sloboda et al. 2019). The aim of the policy is to overcome and mitigate the ongoing conflict to prevent and stop the use of drugs in the United States, especially opioid. In a general context, The Support Act is a policy that is meant to manage and deal with the crisis of substance abuse.

Problem Identification

How the Support Act is an effective measure to control substance abuse?

Focus of the problem

The focus of the problem is to identify the effectiveness of The Support Act designed by the American government to address substance abuse. Substance abuse is one of the most critical issues that is faced by the American public today (Sloboda et al. 2019).

Options for solving problem

There are a lot of options that can be used for solving this issue. One of the major options is “education”. People should be educated about the impact of substance abuse. The government should try to embed effort that can control the “availability of drug” and approach of vulnerable population to the drug. Also, effort can be made to treat the people at priority who are already suffering from disorder (Sloboda et al. 2019).

Background

The bill of the policy was passed on 28 September 2018 with an aim to overcome and control the ratio of substance abuse, particularly the deaths caused by using opioid. The policy was signed because about 21 million Americans of 12 years of age are suffering from substance abuse in 2017(Hall et al. 2019). Today, three out of the four people have substance abuse disorder. Also, three in one person are those who suffer from medical concerns that are the product of substance abuse. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 19.7 million American adults have battled any of the substance use disorder in 2017 (Sloboda et al. 2019). About 74% of the adults are suffering from substance use disorder as per research in 2019, where 38% of the adults have battled an illicit drug use disorder (Sloboda et al. 2019).

Landscape

Major stakeholders of the landscape are healthcare professionals, plan sponsors, and Medicare Beneficiaries along with beneficiary advocates. Other stakeholders are healthcare professionals, pain management professionals, and mental health service professionals. There are different views of different stakeholders (Sloboda et al. 2019). Medicare beneficiaries their advocates and some of the healthcare professionals find this policy as a sweeping measure because Medicare is not provided with the required resources (revenue) that can help to address the issue. While pain management professionals and plan sponsor along with some mental health professionals find this policy as one of the effective measures to ensure control of substance abuse. If an initial perspective is considered, then it is highlighted that the policy was formulated and proposed to be signed with the mutual understanding and support of the stakeholders. Issues began to occur when the government was not able to address the approaching concerns in terms of the availability of resources, which made this policy a sweeping measure for the stakeholders.

Options

There are a lot of options that can be used to address the issue, discussed as follows

Education

It is observed that education and awareness is one of the tools that can be used to control drug abuse because there are a lot of people who become reluctant to their habits when they came to know about the negative impact of drugs. One of the pros of this option is, it is one of the easiest methods to control drug abuse, it is effective and easy to proceed with. Unfortunately, there are some cons associated with the issue as well, such as availability of training, approaching people and far-flung areas and the unacceptance by the remote people (Hall et al. 2019).

Medical assistance

Medical assistance refers to the use of clinical treatment such as medication and therapies that can help to control the habitual people. Also, medical assistance can help people get into therapies that can let them overcome the fears that drenched them into drugs. One of the benefits of this option is the quick and effective recovery and control, while the cons are the unavailability of medical treatment for those who cannot approach hospitals (Hall et al. 2019).

Control on the availability of drugs

Control and ban on drugs or a restriction on consumption of drug is another approach that can help to overcome substance abuse. It is difficult to embed or practice because people can find out several other ways while it has the benefit of incorporating complete control (Hall et al. 2019).

Recommendations

There are a lot of recommendations that can be provided to empower control on substance abuse, however, one of the effective recommendations is, "Educating people". It is one of the best options because it can be adjusted in minimum resources, to a lot of people and it will require less time (Hall et al. 2019). It is also one of the best options because social media and technology have facilitated the spreading of information within no or less time. Although it might not be available for people who belong to far off places, still it can educate a lot of people, saving a number of lives (Sloboda et al. 2019). Other options of educating people are community healthcare centers, TV channels and the school training programs which can help both elders and youngsters know the other side of habit which is adopted for temporary pleasure.

References

Hall, K. L., Nahum-Shani, I., August, G. J., Patrick, M. E., Murphy, S. A., & Almirall, D. (2019). Adaptive Intervention Designs in Substance Use Prevention. In Prevention of Substance Use (pp. 263-280). Springer, Cham.

Sloboda, Z., Petras, H., Robertson, E. B., & Hingson, R. (Eds.). (2019). Prevention of Substance Use. Springer.