US heroin use jumps as costs drop, prescription opiate use rises

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Heroin overdose deaths in the United States nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013, fueled by lower costs as well as increased abuse of prescription opiate painkillers, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday.

Such medicines, which include Vicodin, OxyContin and Percocet, increase individuals' susceptibility to heroin addiction, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters.

"Everything we see points to more accessible, less-expensive heroin all over the country," Frieden said of the joint report by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which analyzed national survey data on drug use from 2002 to 2013.

The report found that nearly all people (96 percent) who use heroin also use multiple other substances, and that the strongest risk factor for heroin abuse is prescription opiate abuse.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/u-heroin-jumps-costs-drop-prescription-opiate-rises-170355221.html

[Pharaoh]

1. But,but,but............

Marijuana is the gateway drug to heroin, not Oxycontin right?

[cstanleytech]

2. Hmm my mother used take that and then morphine tablets for her back which had degenerated

and left her in pain before he died last year.
In fact I think there is nearly a full bottle left which I need to throw out its just been hard and taking me time to go through all her things though *sigh*

[mountain grammy]

4. I know, shocking!

Time for an end to reefer madness.

[passiveporcupine]

6. you got it

Such medicines, which include Vicodin, OxyContin and Percocet, increase individuals' susceptibility to heroin addiction, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters.

I've never used heroin, but I do use vicodin and percocet for chronic pain and nerve damage in my back. I use very little and do without rather that allow myself to gradually use more over time. I am afraid that this story is a ruse to try to get people to fear the drugs that so many chronic pain sufferers depend on. If you scare enough people, they can make them illegal and then what do we do?

People need to start thinking instead of just buying the fear propaganda. They said weed was dangerous too, but it's safer than any other drug or alcohol out there.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. The story is no ruse, but any response has to be balanced with the needs of pain patients.

Oh, opiates! They bring surcease from pain like nothing else; they also bring addiction and death. Talk about your two-edged sword.

Legitimate pain patients are already suffering from the crackdown on prescription opiates. It's that crackdown that is driving pill users (legitimate and otherwise) to heroin. It's cheaper than pain pills, but because it's prohibited, it's not regulated, so you never know what you're getting. But it is easily available.

[RobinA]

12. Here's A Thought

How 'bout we HELP PEOPLE who need opiates for whatever reason so they don't have to go to the street. Cutting people in pain off just puts them on the street. Cutting people off who started out in pain and got addicted also puts them on the street. Let's help these people get what they need, or get off what they don't need like they have a medical problem not a moral failing.

Now I'll go really out on a limb and say let's educate people on how to use opiates, legit or otherwise, as safely as possible. Although this will take awhile, because (among many other reasons) the anti-drug industry has lied to people for so long, most people who have so much as been in the same room with a joint don't trust a word the anti-druggers say about anything.

[valerief]

3. Thank goodness we had that war on opium in Afghanistan.

I mean, it was just bum luck they upped their opium production a gazillion times over while we were there "protecting" them.

[Alkene]

7. +1 n/t

[Mojorabbit]

5. It seems to me that people who abuse opiates

would be more likely to abuse other drugs as opposed to people who take opiates but do not abuse them?

[glinda]

8. I just saw a commercial for helping side effects from Opiate usage.

Pile on the drugs! Not!

[Psephos]

9. The obvious, but non-pc conclusion, is that...

...recent Draconian rules regarding Rx opiates have driven addicts to use more heroin and less oxycontin or vicodin.

duh

Who could have seen that coming?

This fucked-up Puritan country is impervious to the simplest laws of human behavior.

[Marrah_G]

11. And the result will be a reluctence to prescribe pain meds

So people who need them will have to suffer. My daughter lay on a gurney in a hall way crying and in pain for almost 2 hours...they gave her tylenol. I finally made a huge fuss.. and told them flat out that she was not an addict and that someone needed to listen to me.

She had had a spinal tap for pressure in her head, the tap leaked and they did a blood patch. The Dr botched the blood patch and my daughter had blood injected IN her spinal fluid. She spent a week in ICU on the strongest pain meds available.

I was furious that she had to suffer because they assumed she was just another young adult looking for a fix.

[RobinA]

13. I Have To Wonder

if people prescribing Tylenol ever actually used Tylenol. It doesn't really work for anything but the most superficial boo-boo. I had a skin cancer removed from my nose and they said use Tylenol. F*cking really? And I have a pretty high pain threshold, but that location just magnified discomfort that, had it been on my arm, would probably have been a lot more bearable. Anyway, I took some old Vicodins for a couple days and was fine.

And no lectures about throwing away old pain meds. Not a chance.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

14. And the result will be a reluctence to prescribe pain meds

And the result of that will be an increase in black market pharmaceuticals, and an increase in street drugs. People will go to some great extents to get relief when they are in unbearable pain.