
Heroin addiction in the U.S - mxschumacher
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvjgvb/the-terrifying-new-trend-in-heroin-addiction
======
davidmr
Of all the things that make me wish I were smarter, being able to do something
with public policy about heroin addiction is very near the top of the list.

I grew up in the nineties and my set of friends and I were all self-medicating
our way through our teenage angst and emotional problems to some degree or
another. It seems like almost overnight heroin showed up in our scene, not
because anyone was addicted to opiate pain medication, but just because
someone's dealer got some, exactly like this article describes.

Within just a couple of years, the collection of friends had an enormous rift
right down the middle: half had tried and become addicted to heroin, and the
other half of us felt like we had no choice but to get out of the scene and
get our shit together.

To this day, I have no idea what factors other than chance put someone in the
former group vs. the latter. Those of us that went into the latter group
weren't any smarter and we didn't have better support networks. Of the dozen
or so people in the former, maybe only 2-3 came out of it successful in the
long-term. Everyone else is either dead, in jail, or living as addicts. I've
spent a _lot_ of time thinking about this to no effect.

Becoming a heroin addict isn't something I would wish on my worst enemy. It's
the most awful thing to see someone you love go through that I can think of.
Treating it as a criminal matter instead of a public health matter is
absolutely the worst possible way to deal with it.

~~~
motherdearest
My experience as a 28 year old former heroin addict is equally as anecdotal
but contradictory. As preteen and teenager I was a big pot smoker and later
cocaine enthusiast. I medicated throughout those teenage years but never saw
opioid pain medication or heroin even though I was fairly deep into the NYC
drug scene. If you had asked then if I would ever inject heroin I would laugh
at you.

Around my freshmen year of college (2007) pain pills started showing up. They
were an instant hit and all my friends start doing them. I explicitly remember
sniffing my first oxycodone in my dorm and thinking "this is what I've been
missing my entire life". My life spiraled downhill quickly. As a lifelong
programmer / math enthusiast I managed to get to my second semester junior
year before my lifestyle really caught up. By then I was homeless, facing
serious felony charges, OD countless times, doing whatever I could for my fix.
Oxycodone was around for a few years before they reformulated and then you
needed heroin to get high. I was shooting it only a week after first trying
it. For the next several years I went from a middle class college student to a
IV homeless heroin junkie. I caught very serious charges and took drug court.
Violated drug court 3 years in and then spent a year in a bad NY jail where I
leaserned to fight and throw urine on people. I learned to act like a fucking
savage. I got out and finished drug court only to get addicted again.

I finally got on Suboxone about 4 years ago. I finished my degree and went
from homeless to making 6 figures in those years.

I'm literally the only success story I know. For most of my peers they died or
are doing long prison bids. We all started from pills, and I can honestly say
I would never have started if it weren't for them. However I recognize the
need for them and don't know if serious restriction is the right way either

~~~
natecavanaugh
Wow... It sounds like you and OP are roughly the same age, and the same age as
my youngest brother, who also kicked heroin addiction (he kicked it a couple
of years ago). What I'm wondering is if there is something generational here.

My father also kicked heroin before I was born in the late 70s, and since his
recovery was such an important part of our life as a family, when we learned
my brother was using, it shocked us, because it seemed so obvious not to do
it. What I've been wondering is why the current crisis is affecting your
generation more heavily than the ones between (or maybe I'm selectively seeing
it in your generation).

Was it the easy access of oxycontin in the late 90s that finally trickled it's
way through the culture and started a resurgence? Was it some other factor
(the fashion cycle that goes in and out every 20-30 years)?

I do know my brother was exposed to it from a friend around his age, and of
course during a painful part of his life, but I'm curious as to the origin
because I see how culture and influence work it's way though our lives, but
I'd love to have some hints as to why heroin itself made such a comeback.

------
testplzignore
This reads like something big pharma would write to shift the blame away from
themselves for causing the opioid epidemic and killing hundreds of thousands
of people.

> Although most users still get their first taste from one of several
> prescription pills, heroin is now the single most common individual opioid
> taken by people first trying this class of drugs, the study found.

Or said another way: there are so many prescription opioids on the market that
lead to addiction that no single one wins.

I don't buy the idea that the opioid epidemic was some natural and inevitable
consequence of the economy or stress or whatever. "Oh look, some people
addicted to opioids never took prescription drugs. See, it wasn't our fault
after all! Now let us go back to the good old days where we bribed doctors to
prescribe our stuff to everyone."

~~~
jamesblonde
I agree completely that the opioid epidemic was inevitable either. I'm from
Dublin (Ireland) where heroin just 'appeared' in the 1980s. But it didn't just
appear, a few criminal families introduced it, got richer selling it in
deprived parts of Dublin, then with the increased wealth, spread the drug
around the larger cities in the country.

I live in Stockholm and there is pretty much no heroin here. Don't let people
say "there is", there's not. Compared to any large european city, you never
see strung out junkies anywhere.

I would love to know how much of the crime difference between a city like
Dublin and Stockholm can be explained by heroin (just heroin - we don't have
much crack or breaking-bad stuff). I expect it's the majority of crime and
definitely the majority of homelessness. Heroin is like a viral infection. If
it appears in a city, you have to quarantine off that area, clear the
infection or it will spread and then it's just chronic management after that.

~~~
simonh
Norway recently legislated for Portuguese style decriminalisation of drug use.
Dealing hard drugs will still be illegal and dealers will still be pursued,
but drug use and the behaviours typical of addicts will no longer be treated
as criminal matters but as public health issues. This approach has had a
massive effect in Portugal, dramatically reducing use rates, medical
complications from drug use and related crime.

Obviously Norway is a different country from Sweden, but do you know what made
them go down that route? Do they have a significantly bigger drugs problem
there?

------
mrec
If you missed it when it first appeared last September, the Cincinnati
Enquirer's _Seven Days of Heroin_ was a gruelling but phenomenally powerful
read.

[https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-
of-...](https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-of-heroin-
epidemic-cincinnati/)

~~~
jokermatt999
Along similar lines, The LA Times' series on opioid addiction was gripping. It
offers a story of how some people fall in to worse and worse spirals.

[http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-
part1/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/)

I hadn't seen that Cincinnati Enquirer article though, so thank you for
sharing. I'm not looking forward to hearing about the suffering, but I feel
the need to educate myself. I worry this is the new normal.

Edit: God, the pacing of that article...all the lives lost in short vignettes,
names unknown, punctuated by daily death/overdose numbers for just one city?
Horrifying when you realize what a tiny facet this represents of the national
suffering due to this epidemic.

------
rsbartram
Having first hand experience with the addiction epidemic in the U.S.,
education and rehabilitation is where 90% of all resources should be
allocated. Not in the penal and policing policies, budgets or systems of
influence. The website I edit raises money for a non-profit structured sober
living in Los Angeles called Awakening Recovery which helps men become
productive members of society after giving up any mind altering substance.
[https://www.awakeningrecovery.org/](https://www.awakeningrecovery.org/)
[https://latechnews.org/we-support/](https://latechnews.org/we-support/)

~~~
nyolfen
unfortunately the rehab industry is filled with questionable players and
downright con-artists:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/27/business/new-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/27/business/new-
drug-rehabs.html)

(the entire nyt series is this from is excellent)

------
mLuby
Is there any talk of legalizing heroin to make it easier to provide treatment
options?

~~~
stochastic_monk
Or at least decriminalizing its use. Maybe leaving the process of dealing in
large quantities as illegal but trying to see users of it as patients rather
than as miscreants.

According to this article [0] from the NYT, nothing really compares to
maintaining prior abusers on buprenorphine/methadone while working through
therapy as far as efficacy for the masses. Granted, I think everyone responds
differently to all sorts of things and have met some phenomenal individuals
two credit 12-step programs for both their sobriety and living more fulfilling
lives than they had even before their addictions, so mileages will vary.

Between the two, methadone's effects on QT interval and cardiac mortality
makes me think that it's morally reprehensible to get patients stuck on it,
while buprenorphine also has the prophylactic effect of muting any
recreational opioids that patients taking it might encounter, reducing the
positive feedback loop.

Regardless, it's definitely time for us as a society to focus more on helping
people rather than marginalizing them.

[0]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/opinion/treating-
opioid-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/opinion/treating-opioid-
addiction.html)

------
tastythrowaway
So does this mean opioids are an actual gateway drug?

------
kp1
American govt is helping or allowing it into the country. Their actions must
be stopped first. U.S. Troops Patrolling/protecting poppy fields in
Afghanistan. Yeah, go war on drugs....

[https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-
hezbollah-d...](https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-
drug-trafficking-investigation/)

[http://humansarefree.com/2015/02/overwhelming-evidence-
that-...](http://humansarefree.com/2015/02/overwhelming-evidence-that-cia-
is.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW2YWqVpT4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW2YWqVpT4E)

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/14066.html](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/14066.html)

~~~
hungerstrike
This is the truth.The war on drugs is a war on people. Did you know that in
2000, opium production had almost completely stopped in Afghanistan, thanks to
the Taliban? That’s like 80% of the worlds supply of heroin. The global market
value of heroine is like half a trillion. Where do people think intelligence
agencies get all of their black money from? That’s the real reason that we
went to Afghanistan.

~~~
dnh44
I've read that before the Taliban banned production they stockpiled a lot of
it, then when prices skyrocketed they sold their reserves at a much larger
profit.

[http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0700poppyban](http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0700poppyban)

~~~
hungerstrike
That’s very interesting, especially the timing.

