| Hans-Günter Meyer-Thompson | International
USA. Investigating the Heroin and Prescription Opioid Epidemic: A Lesson Plan
For hundreds of years, medicinal opioids have eased human pain after medical procedures, injuries, illness and disease. Yet from the earliest civilizations, societies have also struggled to balance the medicinal benefits of pain killers with their highly addictive nature and with the death and devastation caused by their misuse and abuse. Today, heroin addiction and prescription opioid misuse have become a 50-state epidemic, a deadly health care disaster overwhelming local, state and federal officials.
In this lesson, students learn about the causes, effects and possible solutions to this national crisis. (New York Times, 04.05.2017)