Persuasive Speech Audience Assessment

Speaker Nicholas Warlin COMM 1020-404 Date Mar 18, 2019

Specific Goal: To persuade my audience that opioids are dangerous medications and that they
should be extremely limited and used responsibly.

Audience Need: This action fills the physical and safety need(s) of my audience since opioids
are common for pain management and can kill you.

Audience Application: To identify how unsafe it is to take opioid medications without

Audience Knowledge: Most audience members are familiar with the topic, but they are some
elements that are unknown.

Adapt to Audience Knowledge: I will hurry through the parts of my speech that are already
known and spend more time focusing on things that I’m sure the audience isn’t
familiar with.

Audience Attitude: I believe most of the audience will be supportive to my call to action.
Some of them may be cautious because they could be addicted to opioids already
and don’t see that they have a problem. Some may not care.

Adapt to Audience Attitude: I will use lots of facts in my speech to make the audience feel
scared of how real of a situation opioid addiction is. I will try to find stories to
appeal to my audience’s pathos.

Primary Ethos: I am a pharmacy technician and I see people come into my pharmacy every
day that are addicted to opioid medications. I have had a few patients overdose
and die. Some have lived and are still addicted to opioids. I know procedures
from my pharmacy to save lives for those affected.

Pathos: My audience will feel fear, sympathy, guilt about how generally unknown opioid
addiction is and how dangerous it is.
I am using the story from one of my articles about visualizing how many deaths there were last
year to help them feel this emotion.

Logos: I will use statistics from all five of my articles to appeal to my audience. Statistics such
as how many deaths per day, what drugs are the cause, etc.

Baby Steps: Learn why opioids are dangerous medications, what health problems they pose,
and to identify a way to create an effective pain management plan with your
physician and to dispose of medications to lower the potential for addiction.

Hook: Last year, there were 72,000 deaths from prescription drug overdoses, imagine this as an
NFL stadium full of dead people.
 Persuasive Outline Template
Student Nicholas Warlin
Date Mar 18, 2019
Comm 1020-404
Instructor: Shirene McKay

Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that opioids are dangerous medications and that
they should be extremely limited and used responsibly.
Attention
I. Imagine an NFL stadium at full capacity at 72,000 people. This number is about how
many Americans died last year from drug overdoses. (Sternberg).
A. “as many as one in four patients receiving long-term opioid therapy in a primary care
setting struggles with opioid addiction” (CDC).
B. “On average, 130 Americans die everyday from an opioid overdose” (CDC).
C. “Taking too many prescription opioids can stop a person’s breathing—leading to
death.” (CDC).
Transition: Additionally, I have some insight into this subject since I see the problem every day.
II. I have worked in a pharmacy for 3 years and fill at least 200 opioid prescriptions a day.
A. From 2010 to 2017, pharmacies filled nearly 1.9 billion opioid prescriptions.
(Nachlis).
B. Every night, our stack of C2 medications (opioids and stimulants) is larger
than the rest of what we fill combined.
C. Most of these medications are prescribed for breaking a bone or oral surgery,
and many come back to fill more than one opioid medication.
Transition: Next I would like to give an explanation of why opioids aren’t the best to use.
III. I will explain why opioids aren’t the best way to manage pain.
A. I will explain why people become addicted to prescription pain medications.
B. I will explain the negative health effects that are related to the use of opioids.
C. I will then explain some alternative ways of pain management and how
they’re unsatisfactory in relieving the use of opioids in all situations.
Transition: Next I will talk about what makes opioid medications so addictive.

Need
IV. Opioids are addictive.
A. Opioids are easy and cheap to get ahold of.
B. I was given opioids when I had my wisdom teeth pulled, and it cost around $5.
C. “as many as 4 in 5 of those addicted to heroin say they started by abusing
medications that were prescribed for legitimate purposes” (Healy).
D. Social media and popular culture makes drug use seem cool. Due to this
influence “recent searches on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, for hashtags
of the names of drugs--such as #oxy, #percocet, #painkillers, #painpills, #oxycontin,
#adderall and #painrelief--revealed thousands of posts by a mash-up of people
grappling with addiction, those bragging about their partygoing lifestyle and
enticements from drug dealers” (Dwoskin).
Transition: Besides how addictive opioids are, they also pose some unattractive and deadly side
effects as well.
V. Opioids have negative health effects.
A. People who take opioids for prolonged use deal with opioid induced
constipation and need to take stool softeners.
 B. Opioids affect the respiratory center for the body, slowing down breathing
which can lead to hypoxia (lack of oxygen), killing brain cells.
C. In severe cases, this can lead to organ system failures and can also cause death.
Transition: People deal with these health effects because alternative therapies don’t provide
much pain relief and are hard to access.
VI. Alternative methods of pain management can be hard to commit to.
A. Medical marijuana is one method of alternative pain management.
1. Medical marijuana is hard to access because of legal barriers
2. Insurance companies do not cover the cost due to these barriers.
B. There are other non-medicinal methods of pain management
1. A healthy lifestyle such as no smoking, no drinking, exercising, and
having a well-balanced diet can minimize the need for opioid medications
a. Smoking and drinking are two addictions that are hard to break.
b. Healthy food and exercising can be expensive and hard to manage.
2. External TENS units are used to pain management.
a. TENS units only provide temporary relief
b. These units only target surface area pain, not deep muscle pain.
Transition: These alternative methods make people feel like opioids are the only effective
method of pain relief and they get stuck on long term prescriptions that are dangerous for their
health.

Satisfaction
VII. We should limit and remove the current opioids circulating around.
A. Shorten the duration of prescribed pain medications
1. The longer you are on pain medication, the greater the potential there is
to become addicted.
2. Our bodies like how relaxing pain medications feel and become used to
receiving them at timed intervals, increasing dependence on the medication.
a. This can also lead to the body developing a tolerance for the
medication, prompting providers to increase dosage of medication.
b. The body also starts to feel more chronic pain as it stops producing its
own endorphins, causing the need for more opioids.
B. Disposing unused medications to remove the temptation of using them.
1. Disposing of unused opioids helps to keep them away from people that
feel like they are dependent on them.
2. There are plenty of disposal boxes around. Most pharmacies, fire stations,
and police stations have a box.
Transition: Your doctor is also an important resource in avoiding opioid addiction.
VIII. Talk to your provider before surgery and discuss your concern of becoming addicted
to opioid medications.
A. Depending on the treatment, they may try alternative pain methods such as
weaker opioids that have less chance for dependence, or anti-inflammatory drugs
and topical anesthetics to avoid them all together.
B. If opioids are required, have your doctor write a small amount and keep going
back for more as needed. When the pain is gone, stop taking them and dispose of any
extras at a disposal box.
Transition Statement: Some people are curious on why they should be cautious with opioids.
Here’s why.
IX.
 A. It may be inconvenient to go back to your doctor multiple times for
prescriptions
1. It may be inconvenient, but you are also saving your life in the process.
2. Doctors now can fax in medication orders to your pharmacy instead of
requiring a visit. You just need to call them.
B. There is still the potential for abuse with any opioid
1. There is always a weaker opioid you can use if you are afraid that has less
potential for abuse.
2. Talk to your doctor for alternative pain management.
a. You have the right to a choice on what methods are used to manage
your pain.
b. There are plenty of alternative methods to treat pain.
C. Some would argue to hang on to the medication instead of disposing for future
use.
1. Pain medication is cheap enough not to worry about throwing it away.
2. Paid medications expire over time and do not work as effectively if not
used within a certain time frame.
Transition: As you can see, opioids are dangerous but must be used to manage pain effectively
and responsibly.

Visualization
X. Imagine having to have surgery on your knee. You are given a prescription for narcotic.
Imagine two choice on how to proceed.
A. On one hand, as you start to recover, and require the medication less, you
decide to get rid of the medication early even though a few pills remain just to
avoid the temptation.

B. On the other, you continue to take the medication, your body starts to depend
on the medication, you then require more and more pain medication to manage, and
fall into the vicious cycle of opioid addiction.
Transition: I’m sure you can see which of these scenarios ends up better in the end. Please make
the right choice.

Call to Action
XI. Next time you are prescribed an opioid medication, remember
A. How addictive and unhealthy the substance is.
B. Talk to your doctor about an effective pain management plan.
C. Dispose of all unused medication.
Transition: Remember, one conscious choice when you still have the power makes the
difference between taking back control of your life or falling into chaos.
XII. Please, for your safety, talk to your physician about how you plan to manage your pain,
and dispose of any unused medication for the temptation it poses. Anybody can fall into the
vicious cycle of opioid addiction.
 Work Cited

Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "Instagram has a Drug Problem. its Algorithms make it Worse." Washington
Post, 26 Sep. 2018, pp. A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.libprox1.slcc.edu.

Healy, Melissa. "Oral Surgery Tied to Opioid Abuse Risk." Los Angeles Times, 07 Dec. 2018,
pp. B.2. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.libprox1.slcc.edu.

Nachlis, Herschel. "This is Why the Federal Government has a Hard Time Regulating.."
Washington Post - Blogs, 13 Jan. 2019, pp. n/a. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-
com.libprox1.slcc.edu.

“Opioid Overdose.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, 19 Oct. 2018, www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/index.html.

Sternberg, Bill. "The Opioid Crisis Hits Home. Mine." USA Today (Online), 26 Sep. 2018.
SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-com.libprox1.slcc.edu.