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Heroin is getting a lot of attention these days. Why? Its a huge problem and its getting worse. Other why? Suburban white kids are the new face of heroin. .Crack, whether it is true or not, has a black face. Its an inner city problem. It doesn't affect them, so middle class and above people don't care. Pretty much the same with meth, its a rural white problem. We as a society pretty much write these two groups off. Doesn't affect us, who cares?
When suburban white kids start dying it gets attention. Suburban white kids who have everything, live a nice life, aren't supposed to get addicted to things like heroin. They are supposed to go to college, get married and have 2.2 kids and buy a house in the suburbs down the street from their parents. Blond Susie the cheerleader isn't supposed to be on heroin. But she is.
So we are in the middle of a heroin epidemic. I see it everyday. High school kids on heroin. Overdoses. I am seeing it more frequently. Its sad and depressing to see yet another drug destroy communities.
Recent articles have traced the use of heroin back to prescription drugs. Here's the scenario: Mom or Dad goes to the doctor for lets say back pain. Doctor willingly gives them a script for Percocet or Vicodin. No prob. Back pain resolves, not all of prescription is used. Mom or Dad puts it in the medicine cabinet, not wanting to throw it away. Junior sees it, takes it, maybe goes to a part and throws it in a bowl with all these other collections of narcotics the other kids brought from their parents medicine cabinets. Junior likes the feeling. Gets addicted. Its an expensive habit on the street. Pills going for 5-10 dollars a piece on the street. Friends introduces them to heroin, cheap, better high. And so the saga begins...and ends either dead or in the ER with an overdose.
And we are right back where we started: at the docs prescription pad. I have ranted on this for years: the overprescribing of narcotics. The docs of this country's responsibility for it. Why don't they stop doing it? Old news. Not changing anytime soon.
Perhaps we should be asking a different question: Why do we live in a country with such a massive drug problem? Why do we as a country feel the need to dope ourselves up in order to cope with life? We are constantly telling ourselves what a great country this is, blah blah blah. I don't think so. We are fooling ourselves. This is a sick society. We pretend it isn't as our kids are dying.
Crack has been a big issue and part of the failed 'war on drugs' since I was a kid. It is possible that instead of ignoring it because it is an inner-city issue it is getting less attention because it is impossible to stop. There was a lot of focus on Meth for a while in the 90s. Beyond making me sign for my mucinex at the pharmacy I think that has been given up as a lost cause too. Now they are going to work on Heroin for a while. Make a couple futile rules, then throw up hands and move on to the next thing. It is the pattern with drugs. I think the only one they are having real success with is smoking. Unfortunately a lot of that success comes from the fact it is legal and local governments have taxed it so hard that people just can't afford it. That is reaching a limit though as contraband cigarettes are becoming more common. Prohibition never works.
ReplyDeletemucinex? you have to sign for it?
ReplyDeletecan we harvest organs from these doa druggie?
ReplyDeleteInteresting insight.
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget that as soon as a Hollywood "star" dies of an overdose, suddenly we feel inspired to punish the evil drug pushers and finally confront this new epidemic.
There's no secret that war is the health of the state. The more wars on drugs that the government can announce, the more funds and freedoms they can convince people to sacrifice.
Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your own choices?
I've always thought drugs should be viewed as a health concern and treated as such, not a criminal problem (talking about "users" of course).
Best wishes!
Amanda at www.healthcareercompass.org
Why are people blaming the physicians for this? It's the parents who leave the drugs out when they have children in the house. If those kids are stealing their parents medications, the medications need to be put somewhere they cannot find it.
ReplyDeletethe physicians are prescribing too many narcs. not rocket science.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is a black vs white children. I think it is a RICH vs POOR problem. Anyways when the RICH people complain about their children it gets noticed more because they have money and have more political power. The question to me is "Why is a larger percentage of children trying out and getting hooked on the illegal drugs?"
ReplyDelete