
Heroin in the Midwest: A hydra-headed scourge - aburan28
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21665009-how-midwest-battling-drug-epidemic-hydra-headed-scourge?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/ahydraheadedscourge
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joesmo
Legalize it or decriminalize it so that people can get help. In the meantime,
it seems needle exchanges are legal in Illionis and there are some methadone
clinics, though it's hard to gauge the available help in the area just from a
few searches. Allow more, easier buprenorphine and methadone prescriptions.
Create more methadone clinics and needle exchange programs. It's frustrating
to see this kind of shit in America when everyone and their retarded brother
knows the simple solutions to this problem. It's even more frustrating when
you've seen that these things work and have worked on close family members
(though not without it costing a lot and the system putting roadblocks
(sometimes literally) at every single step).

It's shameful that this country treats its sick addicts like criminals and the
people who continue this travesty honestly deserve at least life in jail if
not the death penalty. They are truly the ones committing crimes against
humanity in our society, filling up the jails, etc., and should be punished
accordingly.

~~~
armenarmen
I've lost a couple friends to heroine overdoses, most were people that got
hooked to pain pills, and when the "pill mills" were shut down they turned to
heroine. With street drugs the potency is unknown and they caught hot shots.

Removing the pseudo legal pill mills resulted in my friends dying. This drug
and all drugs should be made legally available so that addicts don't die left
and right. It's a fucking travesty that any politician who even begins to
mention it is considered soft on drugs and gets crucified.

~~~
mtdewcmu
>> I've lost a couple friends to heroine overdoses, most were people that got
hooked to pain pills, and when the "pill mills" were shut down they turned to
heroine.

The law of unintended consequences...

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droopyEyelids
While I agree this needs to be treated as a public health issue (rather than
treating users as criminals) I think pinning the blame on doctors is myopic.

One of the biggest factors that leads people to a life of opiate abuse is when
people can't envision a future for themselves.

You see it throughout the rust belt- people who worked in manufacturing were
left without a job, in a town without prospects, and disability rates
skyrocket. Along with the disability wave comes opiate abuse and alcoholism.

Doctors could stop prescribing opiates entirely, and the problem will
continue. Epidemics like this are the result of a confluence of factors. If
increasing amounts of young women are feeling hopeless about the future, if
women (and men) are left without a plan for how they want to live, they're
going to look to take their minds off it whatever way they can, and drug abuse
is a simple pathological way to do it.

~~~
hellbanner
Yes, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park)
for more. Opiate addicted rats weaned themselves off of opiates when moved
from cages to a nice playground.

See also, Halfway Houses.

~~~
jdc
I'd like to believe the conclusions of Rat Park, but I've heard there were
problems reproducing their results.

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zeckalpha
For two years, I worked down the hall from David Ferguson, mentioned in the
article. Small world.

