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Heroin abuse at 'epidemic' level in South Florida -drug report

neversickanymore

neversickanymore

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Heroin abuse at 'epidemic' level in South Florida -drug report
January 30, 2014


By Zachary Fagenson

MIAMI (Reuters) - A high-profile law enforcement crackdown on prescription painkiller abuse in Florida has addicts turning increasingly to heroin, resulting in the highest number of overdose deaths and hospitalizations in recent years, a report on drug abuse said.

Deaths from heroin - now more potent and widely available than ever - rose 89 percent statewide from 62 in 2011 to 117 in 2012, with the problem reaching epidemic proportions in South Florida, according to a report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institute of Health.

In Miami-Dade County, deaths jumped 120 percent, from 15 in 2011 to 33 in 2012.

"We're talking here about the mother of addictions," said James N. Hall, an epidemiologist at Nova Southeastern University who authored the report with 20 NIDA researchers nationwide who have met biannually since 1976 to track drug use trends.

"The crossover from the prescription products to illicit heroin complicates that and will fuel the continued epidemic," he added.

continued here >> http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...e-at-epidemic-level-south-florida-drug-report
 
Heroin is epidemic everywhere. My high school was flooded with it back in New Jersey 5 years ago, the problem there has only gotten worse and I've been all over the country since then - it's a huge problem everywhere.
 
People started predicting this on bluelight 3 years ago. Its a shame our drug policy is so incoherant.
 
Yeah, pretty funny at the end of the article he comments that it was a fatal mistake when they took away all the prexcription narcotics and didn't bother addressing the actual problem...did it only just now occur to them that that might be a problem?
 
I was reading about the "pill mills" in Florida, where you could pretty much buy synthetic heroin for cash, and when they tightened up the laws there, it seemed inevitable to me that all of those addicts would turn to street drugs-where purity or even toxicity is a crap shoot. I know the OD rates of Florida were high during the pill mill scandal; I wonder if they'll go even higher now?

Edit: I just realised how much I despise the word "epidemic" when used to describe the rates of drug use; we're hardly talking about a flesh-eating virus here-it's just drugs.
 
When i was down in tampa maybe 6-7 years ago heroin wasn't a big problem, but since they're cracking down on those beautiful roxis, them people are turning to heroin now.....they're fucking blind for not seeing this coming.
 
Ugh more heroin hysteria. It was like that in the northeast USA last time I was back there too.
 
Yea the epidemic shit is really fucking old. I wonder how many realize that the language used to describe the increase in access to or use of dope is itself a product of the drug war machine. Well, no not really...
 
This was predicted when they shut down most of the pill Mills. It is simple economics why the fuck are they acting like Florida was supposed to be special.
 
Yup. Live in Florida. Funny they didn't see this coming. You used to get blues for pretty cheap here compared to the rest of country and dirty docs were all over the place. I read somewhere that at one time florida prescribed more oxy than the rest of the states combined. Now they're trying to act like they are doing the right thing by tightening up on the legal drug trafficking. It's going to get a lot worse here before it gets better. That's what happens when everyone realizes heroin is 10% of the price of oxy. What a fucking joke, lots of people are going to die because most of these kids are used to getting opiates where they know what dosage they are taking. 100 mg of heroin looks like a lot less dope than 80 mg of oxy, and kids were dying off of oxy too. This state sucks.
 
Are you kidding? This is an epidemic, in a major city? Get real.
NJ/PA/NY have a hell of a lot more going on with heroin than FL.
My county in PA has more than DOUBLE the heroin deaths and a hell of a lot less population (we arent talking philly or pittsburgh here)
like a super lot less.
 
I think this article has more to do with the oxy problem in FL becoming a heroin problem. FL has nowhere near the numbers the north east has but it very well could be in a few years. FL was king of the oxy epidemic and has a major opiate problem now.
 
Well, everyone was saying on here was saying this years ago...I don't know what they were thinking cracking down SO HARD on doctors, I mean I get shutting down the pill mills, but doctors are basically scared to write anything now. My friend who is truly in pain and can't move around(well, barely without meds) doctor got his licesnse takin away by the DEA...the next doctor she went to said he wasn't going to lose his lisence like the last doctor and wrote 30mg(10mg 3 times a day) oxycodone and walked outta the room..didn't ask questions or anything. My friend was on 90-120mg of Oxycodone a day for the past 5/6 years! Crazy right? It's getting FUCKING RIDICULOUS. There are always gonna be people who doctor shop, it's been going on since doctors have been around! But I have gotten off topic, but what do they expect when they take an addicts drug away?? There not all gonna wanna go on Methadone or Suboxone, there going to wanna get high...
 
Some US "drug expert" douche was in the Sydney papers the other day warning us that if we don't make prescription opioids harder to get, everything will turn out just like the worst of the US. Everyone's on heroin! Thousands of people OD on oxy every day! Ooga booga!

Think he's kinda misunderstanding the historical path of the situation he's talking about.
 
SixBuckets said:
Some US "drug expert" douche was in the Sydney papers the other day warning us that if we don't make prescription opioids harder to get, everything will turn out just like the worst of the US. Everyone's on heroin! Thousands of people OD on oxy every day! Ooga booga!

Think he's kinda misunderstanding the historical path of the situation he's talking about.
Click to expand...

While prescription opioids are fairly popular here amongst a niche market, I don't think we're in danger of a US style "epidemic" - as you said the historical and cultural factors are totally different. If it does happen, it won't be for a while, meth just has too much of a grip on the drug using population right now, and the hangover from the whole 90's heroin scene is still too fresh in our cultural memory.

As for America, well, duh. It's tragic, but it's also a perfect example of how terribly flawed the war on drugs is.
 
SteeleyJ said:
It's only going to get worse
Click to expand...

Likely yes. It was SO bad with oxy when I lived there in 2010, and there was almost NO heroin (I mean, a couple people told me maybe, but oxy was so much cheaper nobody bothered).

If the oxy disappeared... well there's definitely enough population and money there to make it worth somebody's while to make it more available..
 
Oh gee wiz, what did they think was gonna happen after the clueless politicians and bureaucrats chose to clamp down hard on so called 'pill mills' in the state?

Yet another reason to point to when debating whether to trust these idiots as if their opinions regarding 'street drugs' and drug war related laws/policies are that of experts in the field of neuropsychopharmacology and addiction in general. In reality, these twits continue to facilitate increasingly dangerous 'solutions.' Wish more people would realize this and stop trusting their biased, capitalistic judgement.
 
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