I don't think there's such thing as a "heroin epidemic". If you look at the percentage of people in the USA using heroin, it's quite small...smaller than, say, the amount of people in the USA using cocaine at the height of that drug's popularity. Nowadays the media coverage on the subject of cocaine during the late 70's/early 80's (and onward into the crack era) is commonly seen as being grossly sensationalized, to put it mildly...I imagine that one day today's "heroin epidemic" will be looked at in much the same light.
As a child of the 90's and early 2000's I also remember the rural American "meth epidemic". 8)
There's been a demographic shift in users of heroin and maybe a marginal increase in the popularity of the drug, but besides that...
I grew up during the late 80s, and all through the 90s, and early 00s and heroin and opiate pills were extremely popular then and it's nothing new.
There's been a "heroin epidemic" in the United States for 50 years.
I know people who are older who told me all about how in the early and mid 60s in most large cities here in the United States that heroin was easily available, and that it was also available outside of cities as well in suburbs and rural areas outside of large cities.
These older people did not use heroin or other drugs, they knew people who did, and that most of these people are either sober, or died from heroin or other drugs decades ago.
The biggest cause of what can be considered the heroin epidemic (the movement of heroin use from innercity black and latino communities to young suburban white communities): The existential nightmare that is living in the united states anymore.
why did it start? dude, if you are asking the question, I am assuming you've heard of it over and over again. how everyone was once addicted to pills, for many reasons, and as the pills slowly disappeared and the Dr's stopped writing those scripts like they once were, everyone decided to make the switch. come on, you asked the question but I know, and YOU KNOW, that you already knew this answer. so many pill mills in FL at one point and now its all under control to a degree. and so many Dr's once able to write and now shut off/shut down to a degree and unable to write like they once did. Dr's who were writing 30/30's a month now will write for 5MG perc's if lucky. time have changed due to the abuse and due to all the exposure, so everything had to shut down to protect America and not make things look so bad but guess what? things are even worse because everyone has moved onto dope and now fent has hit the street and made things even more "crazy" w/ how the game is played.