Friday, February 24, 2017

Heroin Explosion Isn't Listening to Trump's Speeches

The increases and the speed of them are shocking for heroin overdoses and deaths.  (RT:  Heroin-related overdose deaths quadrupled from 2010-15 - US govt)

When the deaths quadruple in four years, it's not just a problem but an epidemic.  For us it's unimaginable since everyone knows what heroin does to you, right?

Apparently some don't know even when that doesn't seem possible.  A movie like "Trainspotting" can get graphic with heroin addicts and yet more and more people still start on it.  Somewhere there's logic but it's inaccessible to us or we could fix it.

In my experience with drugs (i.e. a lot), the single reason for using them is to discover what you will think or feel while under their influence.  Why you would use a particular drug when you know it's probably going to own you has never made any sense but I wasn't conditioned for it by prescription opiates.

I know I'll likely get bounced for blaming the heroin problem on prescription opiates but experts hammer that hard a bit more into the article.  I know there are other reasons but the prescription opiates make a large one.


For some while I was defensive about my own drug use in terms of a lackadaisical attitude about reefer having any bearing on the use of heroin.  That defensiveness is gone since the emphasis from people actually tracking the problem is strong that prescription opiates are at the root of it.

"You are 40 times more likely to use heroin if you started with opioid painkillers," Hamburg said, according to Reuters. "Heroin is part of America's larger drug abuse problem."

- RT

- Insert long-winded editorial on overproduction of prescription opiates by Big Pharma -


The reason for posting is I was shocked by the acceleration.  It's staggering that this continues to get worse and I see valiant efforts all over to learn about Naloxone and how to use it to try to save addicts when they overdose.  Sometimes cops in a single city will deal with fifty or more overdoses in a day.  Those efforts must be heartbreaking for those who make them since they know it doesn't do anything to stop more people from overdosing; they just keep on doing it.

The same is true for people who work to rehabilitate addicts and Lotho has related multiple situations in which people are working so hard to do that.  They have the same brutal knowledge that the number of people who keep starting into it doesn't slow.

This is the kind of situation to warrant getting furious since Trump is talking about increasing the nukes, the military, and going on yet another Washington spending spree while a major domestic problem continues to worsen even when the existence of the problem is well-known.


The question which never gets answered is how all that heroin gets into America.  The favorite Rockhouse theory is only the CIA can get that much weight past Customs.  There may be another answer but that one has come up as the most logical for many more than just me.

The bigger question is why should they do it.  What benefit does the CIA accrue from destroying an unpredictable segment of America.  There was some thinking in "Boyz in the Hood" they do it to enslave black people and it may have been true at that time but heroin use hasn't been isolated to the ghetto for decades.

It seems there is no good reason but still it happens.


We also don't know why America hasn't smoked the opium fields in Afghanistan.  They should be able to spot them with satellites and burn them with drones so what's the hold-up.


I know this article is a borderline rant and I've done it before but ... kee-rist ... when America is often so damn keen to declare war on things, why hasn't it declared war on heroin.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trump has been in office 4 weeks. Ask why the prior President did nothing. Oh wait he did accept huge contributions from the very companies profiting from the opposite epidemic.
Heroin is not the major player here but it is part of the endgame of most addicts. As they start with prescription opoids they more to heroin on a cost basis
There as many reasons for doing them as there are individuals. There is no blanket start so there can be no blanket solution.
PS the Mexican cartels don't need the CIA to move the products.
Tennessee prescribes opiates at a rate of 1.8 prescriptions per man women and child per year. The start is real oversight of the pain clinics that pop up faster than check cashing stores.
But to help those today we need many more beds for rehabs and not the cots in jail although a short stint in jail might accelerate the realization of what life would be like if they don't seek help
Obama owns this problem as much as anyone

Unknown said...

That cost basis you mention is the surprise since the impression is it is much cheaper than it has been in the past but I don't know if that is accurate.

No chance I'll defend Obama for anything except opening Cuba and Iran. Beyond those two things, he was mostly a waste of oxygen and was willfully dangerous.

Anonymous said...

Sorry auto correct trashed a line
Pill addicts move to heroin because it is much cheaper. They start their addicts with legal prescriptions but continue with pill from some from pain clinics then heroin. This is just a common path but certainly not the only one.

Unknown said...

That path seems inevitable. They get hooked on the pain pills when they're legal because of some injury. Eventually the doctor cuts them off so now they have to pay full price. They're already going illegal to get those pills without any script for them and heroin is cheaper. Yep, what else would happen.