Historically, herbal medications were the only form of therapy known to treat the ill. While these therapies are still in use today, their effectiveness, safety, and usage are all brought into question with the fairly new discovery of prescription medications. Because of the advancements in medicine over the years, prescription medications have almost taken over the world of medicine. This poses the question of which route medical therapy plays in a more effective and healthy role in the process of curing and preventing illnesses in the human body; and how each could potentially cause less harm on a global/national scale. This leads to new thought about how the impact of these treatments on patients and the country can be used in a positive way. 

In the past three decades worldwide, there has been a trending increase in the use of herbal medications as a healthy alternative to prescription medications. About 80% of people have been increasingly using them as at least some part of their primary healthcare (Ekor). This is because of a few issues with health care today; the expense of an insurance plan to cover the cost of the expensive prescription medications, rising cost of healthcare itself, and the need for people to want to self medicate and potentially heal themselves (Ehrlich). With this said, there is so much that is not known about these herbal medicines. These medicines are not regulated as typical medicines are, but as supplements. Because the regulation between the two are so different, there is no dosage known to be correct which could lead to potential harm of the user relating to possible overdosing or not using enough to be properly treated. With not being put through clinical trials, there is no analytical proof that the herbal medicines work well in the body when fighting a sickness or have any harmful interactions with other substances in the body (O’connor). Without the level of regulation and monitoring that goes into prescription medications, it is clear that there is so much more unknown about herbal medications than people may be predisposed to believe. These readily available medicines cause worry across many people. For instance, imagine what could potentially occur if children got ahold of them. Questions about delays in growth and/or puberty could possibly arise along with other issues concerning the development of a child. 

This lack of regulation and the classification of them being supplements causes these medications to be readily available at drug stores, food stores, and supermarkets (Ekor). This provides easy access for people with health concerns to go and pick up at their convenience. A study has been done concerning how some patients with mental health issues self-medicate as opposed to taking general psychiatric medications such as Cialopram and Fluoxetine. These medications are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant that is used to treat people suffering from depression. They are used to increase the level of serotonin in the brain to increase the mood of the patient (Mayo Clinic). It was shown in the study that many of the participants said that the medications were addictive and created feelings of lack of control while on the medications (Hahne).  In this case, self-medicating can be useful in controlling certain symptoms.

Having the word “herbal” in the name must give people the thought that they are completely natural and are composed solely from natural ingredients. While this may be true for some, the majority of these medicines are just derived from natural substances. In the past, it has been found that using herbs as medications have not only been used by humans, but by animals as well. Before civilization, animals have used plants such as mildly toxic leaves in order to fight off parasitic worms. In 3000 B.C. a tablet was found containing a list of prescription medications made from plants such as myrtle, thyme, and willow mixed with wine, beer, or honey (Jabr). Now that medicine has become so advanced, the direct origin of these herbal medicines have become unknown and lost to science. The ingredients of these medications are not exactly what are listed on their labels (O’connor). This could also cause issues with interactions in the body. With the difficulty in monitoring safety, effectiveness, and regulation, it is difficult to rank herbal medicines as a healthy alternative to prescription medications. 

While herbal medications are steadily on the rise even with all of the unknowns about them, prescription medications have always been well researched, tested, and proven to work to the best degree they can. With this said, there are still some issues present with these medications: including money and uncertainty, addictiveness, and the distribution regulation of these medications on a global scale. Doctors have recently been prescribing medications that they do not know everything about. Drug companies will tell the doctors that if they sell their medication, they will give them a certain percentage of their sales and the doctor then decides if they want to prescribe their patients that certain medication (Goldacre). If the medicine has faults to it, the drug companies may or may not tell the physicians, which leads to uncertainty about what is being prescribed (Goldacre). These faults can include causing terrible side effects for the patients, not working as effectively as the medicine should, or working ‘too well’ and causing issues in the body. In order to create a prescription medication, every ingredient used in the compound is researched in terms of how it works on its own, how it interacts with other ingredients, and how it can be used in order to create very minimal side effects for the patients. After the medication has been formed, it is tested on patients in a clinical trial to see the effects of it on the human body. If the results of the testing are not what was expected, the medicine will then be taken back into the lab to be reconfigured and tested once again after the reconfiguration. Different dosages are tested to see which dose works best to the degree of sickness for different patients. Because of this, the medication dosages are regulated very strictly to prevent possible over dosages and to be sure each patient gets exactly the amount they need to help their illness as opposed to being left in the dark about what exactly is happening in the body when taking herbal medications. While the regulation of the science behind the medicine is a very strict process, there is an issue with the regulation of distribution on the global and US scale. This is how so many people become highly addicted to these medications; because their distribution is so readily available. It is easy for patients seeking these drugs to bounce from physician to physician with the same symptoms, for a while, to retrieve the medicines they are after. Many people become addicted to these medications after they are prescribed them for specific symptoms. Because of the simplicity of the process of these drug seekers, recently Donald Trump has declared the opioid crisis of the United States a national epidemic. It has been reported that about one-thousand people die each week from opioid-related overdoses while millions of people are still suffering from addiction to these drugs. The medications that are contributing to the drug crisis in America include both legally manufactured medications such as Hydrocodone and Oxycodone and synthetic medicines, or illegal narcotics. Opioids in general are used to block the pain receptors in the brain and spinal cord, so the patient feels no pain. They were originally used for patients after surgery for short periods of time before they became prescribed to patients with chronic conditions including joint or back pain (Felter). Prescribing patients with chronic issues causes them to have to take these medications for extended periods of time, every day multiple times a day. This can cause these patients to begin to depend on these medications to be able to get through each day without any pain. Eventually the patient becomes completely dependent on these medications and will begin having a hard time functioning from day to day without them. This dependence on these medications lead to people falling under this opioid epidemic every day. 

In order to help this epidemic, doctors and pharmacists have began to require patients medical records be sent to them before prescribing these pain medicines in order to reduce the amount of times these patients are being prescribed the pain pills. This will, in turn, reduce the number of people becoming addicted to prescribed pain medications. President Trump has declared this “a public health emergency under the Public Health Services Act” which causes federal agencies to provide money to fight against this epidemic, along with creating advertising strategies focused on children and young adults with “anti-drug messaging” (Merica). He is also using personal stories about his family members to show American’s why avoiding addiction is a good idea. Action is being taken in America to combat this crisis, and in the future hopefully people will be able to see how this national epidemic has affected so many families and has hurt their country. In the future, it is important to strengthen the distribution regulation of these medicines. This will reduce the number of people that become addicted, cause a decrease in the national opioid epidemic in the United States, and in turn cause a healthier nation.

If prescription medications were actually bad for ill patients, why are they still in use today? Medical practitioners still use practices from the past, such as antibiotics. This is because these historic practices are well known as very effective and therefore most reliable for both patients and physicians. Antibiotics are one of the most understood methods used to treat patients, and have been for many years. Being found by coincidence in 1928, Penicillin, the first used antibiotic, is still used today to treat many bacterial infections including strep throat. Because this medication is one of the most widely used in the past and now, both physicians and their patients trust the effectiveness in fighting diseases and illnesses. Without medicines found in the past, it would be impossible to make improvements for medicines of the future. The knowledge about these medications discovered in the past paves the way for new information to be identified and improvements to be made. With this, the information builds on each other which provides extra faith in the medicines being used as opposed to not knowing exactly what is being put into your body with herbal medications. 

Each treatment has its cons. Prescription medications can be addictive and expensive, but the regulation of the dosages being used and the history of certain medications are reason to rank these as a healthier way to treat the body from sickness. Herbal medications in general have too much grey area. Little is known about the ingredients they are composed of. This leads to unknown interactions that will occur in the bodies of those who choose this route of treatment. Without knowing the history of these herbal medications and how the advancement of medicine has impacted them, it would be difficult to compare the two. Prescription medications are more trustworthy because of all the research and regulation that goes into designing them. These medicines, if kept properly regulated and researched, will lead to the healthiest way to treat people with medical issues.
