Thursday, August 8, 2013

Heroin comeback

While the Clarion-Ledger, Marshall Fisher, and Governor Phil Bryant hyperventilate over prescription drug abuse, the Wall Street Journal reports heroin is making a comeback:

"Heroin use in the U.S. is soaring, especially in rural areas, amid ample supply and a shift away from costlier prescription narcotics that are becoming tougher to acquire. The number of people who say they have used heroin in the past year jumped 53.5% to 620,000 between 2002 to 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. There were 3,094 overdose deaths in 2010, a 55% increase from 2000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Much of the heroin that reaches smaller towns such as Ellensburg comes from Mexico, where producers have ramped up production in recent years, drug officials say. Heroin seizures at the Southwest border, from Texas to California, ballooned to 1,989 kilograms in fiscal 2012 from 487 kilograms in 2008, according to figures from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The heroin scourge has been driven largely by a law-enforcement crackdown on illicit use of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone and drug-company reformulations that make the pills harder to crush and snort, drug officials say. That has pushed those who were addicted to the pills to turn to heroin, which is cheaper and more plentiful. (
That will go over the heads of the paper, the MBN Director, and the Governor)

"Basically, you have a generation of ready-made heroin addicts," said Matthew Barnes, special agent in charge of the DEA's Seattle division.

Given the growing supply, dealers have flooded local markets with heroin. Former users interviewed in Ellensburg, who didn't want to be identified, said dealers promoted the drug aggressively. A 21-year-old recovering addict said she made the switch from pain pills to heroin after her dealer one day held out both options in his hands and encouraged her to choose the cheaper one.

A former Marine who lives in Ellensburg said he switched to heroin after getting hooked on oxycodone prescribed to him for an injury suffered while serving overseas. "To me, it was identical," said the 28-year-old. "It's mind-numbing, an instant antidepressant." He was eventually arrested for writing bad checks; if he successfully completes drug treatment, charges will be dropped.

Drug experts say the heroin sold today is generally purer and thereby more potent than the varieties prevalent in past decades, increasing the risk of overdose. Moreover, the purity can vary enormously from one batch to the next. A baggie "may be 15% pure one day, and the next day it's 60%," said Skip Holbrook, the police chief in Huntington, W.Va., which sits in an area of Appalachia where heroin is spreading. "It's like playing Russian roulette."

In contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, when heroin ravaged inner-city neighborhoods, this time it is taking hold in rural places that are often unprepared to deal with the fallout, a trend noted in this year's White House National Drug Control Strategy report. Many lack addiction-treatment options. According to data analyzed by the Maine Rural Health Research Center, 93% of facilities nationwide with treatment programs for opioids, a class of pain-relief drugs including heroin, are located in metropolitan areas
....." Article

So in two years they will think of new laws to crack down on the heroin problem in Mississippi. What is the definition of insanity? What is even more pitiful is how many of you people screaming about the government taking your freedom away under Obamacare will happily give it up if some Republicans in nice suits mention the word "drugs". Can't give it away fast enough when that happens.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

All these opioid addicts are slowly switching to heroin. The last to switch will be the doctors and nurses who are getting it at an alarming rate. Fayette County Ky. which is Lexington, will see double the deaths from heroin this year from last. By his time next year it will be all over Mississippi

Anonymous said...

August 8, 2013 at 6:14 PM = Contagion theory.

FALLACY.

Kingfish said...

6:14, true but that will give them a new crisis in two years.

Anonymous said...

@8:29 If you cant get the presciption opioids because the doctors wont prescibe because the feds are cracking down or the chemical change wont allow you to do what you want to do to it, or the cost of a single oxy-pill, then heroin is the next choice you know nothing about the drug trade or use and the arrest there of. We have 3 investiagtors for the nursing board, who by the way are incompetet, and they cant even scratch the surface of the abuse going on. The doctors are harder to catch.

Anonymous said...

Watch out for the contagion theory nazi at 8:29. Maybe I should come up with a catchy, four word post, and repeat it on half the stories on here too. Maybe then ill seem relevant.

Anonymous said...

The final line in this article is such a false equivalency that it makes me wonder if you aren't just trolling.

KF, I know you're butthurt because we don't share your obsession with the Hinds County Board of Supervisors and aren't commenting as much as you'd like on your numerous HCBS posts, but spitting in your readers' faces isn't the way...

...that's what they do over at the JFP.

Anonymous said...

Way to go KF. But remember, thinking for yourself is a criminal offense in these parts.

Why is it that one can't criticize the war on drugs without being labeled a druggie or a liberal.

This so called war was lost years ago. But it did manage to seriously infringe on our rights.

No cause for alarm though. As long as you're not a criminal or a drug user, you have nothing to worry about.

KF, please post instructions on how to donate to your blog.

Kingfish said...

Top of the center column. ;-)

Anonymous said...

KF, I know you're butthurt because we don't share your obsession with the Hinds County Board of Supervisors ...

[yada, yada, yada]

...that's what they do over at the JFP.


Then WHY are you still here?

Anonymous said...

How quickly this got away from the issue and into the same old , same old.

The war on drugs isn't working.

This is not liberal vs conservative . Do remember William F Buckley argued legalization decades ago as did other conservatives.

This should be about finding solutions that focus on prevention and either getting the addict drug free or drug managed so as to be funtional.

Sometimes I wonder if it's not the drug dealers ( who have plenty of money) and the pharmaceutical industry financing the public discussion of the drug problem in the US.

Kingfish said...

What gets me is while Fisher, Bryant, and the newspaper shriek over prescription drugs, they don't do a damn thing about the cuts to the drug courts.

See, drug courts are one thing that work and the leadership has completely failed them across the board. That means Bryant, Reeves, and Gunn. You don't see their internet mouthpieces saying a word about it. Melanie Sojourner and Chris McDaniel, who just love to opine about all things conservative in columns and on Facebook, suddenly get quiet on this subject. But easier to just pass some laws and say you are fighting drugs I guess. Politicians going to politic.

Anonymous said...

Colorado passed and legalized pot
was it because the children of hippies are the majority of voter now?

Anonymous said...

no, it is because of leviticus 20:13:

'for if two men shall lie together, they must be stoned'

Anonymous said...

touché 10:08, clever play on put-to-death.


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