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Why do you think the heroin epidemic started?

Early in the 70's due the vietnam war huge amounts of heroin were brought into US. I remember watching a documentary showing how traffic was being done. Somewhere during during the war tons of heroin were being brought in thousands of coffins carrying deceased soldiers coming home - for years and years.

The intense traffic of heroin might have slowed down due to the coke hikes in the 80's but not for long. Besides, as said above, opiates were part of the history of North America with immigrants from China being able to smoke poppy seeds. The use of opiates were allowed for so long and there were no law enforcement that would prohibit what medicines you could or could not use. And a lot of them were opiates prescribed for cough, diarrhea, etc, etc. There was no control whatsoever, not until it was too late.
 
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I'm originally from suburban MA, ground zero for the current heroin/fentanyl epidemic. Can't count the number of faces I've lost due to opiates, and it always starts out so small and seemingly innocent for recreational users. Other people I know are getting cut off from pain management programs since the crack-down with no alternative but street drugs. Anthony Bourdain actually did an episode of "Parts Unknown" this season in my hometown area (Franklin County), devoted more to bringing attention to the epidemic than the food. He talks to the community and how much worse it's gotten since his days as a young addict chef in 1970's P-town. Depressing.

I had to move clear across the country after some deaths hit way too close to home. You'd understand why it's ground-zero if you grew up there. Used to be the literal center of the American industrial revolution. For the past couple decades all factories are abandoned and you can't find a job pumping gas with a college degree. That combined with lack of any healthy recreational infrastructure or anything to do at all, opiates get real appealing when you can't get a job, can't get into a psychiatrist, and deal with winter for half the year.

Basically, this is an area that perfectly illustrates the social and economic factors that have led to more kids dying from ODs than in the 1970s or any other period. No jobs programs, lack of basic healthy social activities in these towns, lack of decent healthcare insurance and even then no doctors taking patients. No money, not nearly enough beds for recovery programs while at the same time no access to harm-reduction programs in place. Increased social isolation in communities and lack of mental health resources. ALL OF THIS happened to coincide with a sudden boom in access to cheap fentanyl analogues synthesized in China and Eastern Europe was like a spark in a gunpowder keg.
 
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^ Heroin has never been so available to purchase, never so easy to cut plus fentanyl is now in business like never before.
 
I know what you mean

My son moved to NH because heroin is cheaper on east coast and easier to obtain.
I'm in the fight of my lifetime because his father sends him $3500. to $4000. EVERY MONTH! I have practically been beating my head against the wall-telling his father (my ex) to STOP!
My son constantly has "bad luck" -something happens every few days, he either has to go to the doctor, needs prescription filled, car broke down, needs tooth pulled, needs gas money for job interview, can't pay his heating bill ect., ect., ect.!!!
His father believes ALL his excuses. My son doesn't have a job- even though I poored thousands into his education.
So yeah, I know what you mean, but can't understand his FATHER'S actions- I DO understand my son's because he's an addict.
 
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Can't his father see his is trying to kill your son?! Seriously this is dangerous stuff and one of these days (God forbid) something worse could happen.. unfortunately, your son needs to really want to quit. And, it's just too difficult to say no to money when you're addicted.

I believe that at some point he'll find his own rock bottom. He's not happy with his life imo/e, and even If his father is just trying to help, it seems this will become more unbearable as time goes by.
 
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Z3 MOM said:
My son moved to NH because heroin is cheaper on east coast and easier to obtain.
I'm in the fight of my lifetime because his father sends him $3500. to $4000. EVERY MONTH! I have practically been beating my head against the wall-telling his father (my ex) to STOP!
My son constantly has "bad luck" -something happens every few days, he either has to go to the doctor, needs prescription filled, car broke down, needs tooth pulled, needs gas money for job interview, can't pay his heating bill ect., ect., ect.!!!
His father believes ALL his excuses. My son doesn't have a job- even though I poored thousands into his education.
So yeah, I know what you mean, but can't understand his FATHER'S actions- I DO understand my son's because he's an addict.
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I'm so sorry. I cannot imagine how horrific and frustrating this is to you. I do understand having a son who is an addict. Does his father completely ignore/refuse to acknowledge that he severely addicted and this is not a wait and see situation? It is a medical emergency. $4000 a month for misc. "excuses" is mind boggling. That's enough money to pay for the type of recovery programs that most people cannot afford...
 
It's always been an epidemic for decades, albeit it has really poisoned the entire East Coast in the Philadelphia/New Jersey areas. I'm now in Southern California, but lived in Philadelphia and rural areas of PA my entire life, and had friend's die, people you would never ever guess touching heroin..

Hands down..no one likes paying $1 per mg for a pill where you need 3 to even feel them...Leave your parent's suburban house and take the train to Kensington and it's an open air drug market with dope cheaper and purer than bottled water.
 
I'm not sure if it's pure but I can certainly relate to the costs of medicine, especially after they figured it was indeed necessary to have them always by your side. I I can also relate to that person that used heroin and no one would ever have any idea. We are just trying to kill the pain, the discomfort of life. Such a epidemic moment right now. I'm glad I'm sober. Really hope to continue being like that. Had a entire new life and it's improving although we do get depressed at times.
 
If there even is a heroin problem, it is in large part due to the drug manufacturers themselves. I can remember back in the 80's and 90's when you had some kind of pain that warranted more than an OTC medication, you'd get Darvocet or Codeine, or later Hydrocodone. All of these are relatively harmless when it comes to addiction when compared to Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, etc. Over the past few years, you'd go in with a relatively small injury and get Percocet. My 15 year old kid broke a finger and got 15 oxys. I only gave them to him 1/2 at a time and he was fine after a few days, so I took the rest myself :). But this is what started it all in my opinion. The drug manufacturers stopped making the weak stuff and started pushing something they knew was going to create a huge underground market. They're profiting off it in some way, guaranteed.
 
^You may be interested in this recent headline:

Under Babich and the other executives, Insys allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes and kickbacks to doctors who operated pain clinics in exchange for the physicians prescribing the company’s fentanyl product to non-cancer patients, according to charging documents and a statement released Thursday by federal law enforcement.

The Arizona-based company also allegedly “conspired to mislead and defraud health insurance providers who were reluctant to approve payment for the drug when it was prescribed for non-cancer patients.”

“They contributed to the growing opioid epidemic and placed profit before patient safety,” said Harold H. Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field division.

Insys gained notoriety recently for bankrolling the campaign against marijuana legalization in Arizona during the November election. The company, which is developing a synthetic marijuana painkiller, contributed $500,000 to help defeat a ballot initiative that would have allowed recreational marijuana sales in the state.
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Source

The commercials they ran in opposition to prop 205 in Arizona (the only state this year that rejected a cannabis reform initiative) were so blatantly factually incorrect that the state of Colorado sent a cease and desist letter when they claimed that more children were using drugs and schools were not getting any tax benefit from legalization. There is a special place in hell reserved for these people.
 
Transcendence said:
I'm originally from suburban MA, ground zero for the current heroin/fentanyl epidemic. Can't count the number of faces I've lost due to opiates, and it always starts out so small and seemingly innocent for recreational users. Other people I know are getting cut off from pain management programs since the crack-down with no alternative but street drugs. Anthony Bourdain actually did an episode of "Parts Unknown" this season in my hometown area (Franklin County), devoted more to bringing attention to the epidemic than the food. He talks to the community and how much worse it's gotten since his days as a young addict chef in 1970's P-town. Depressing.

I had to move clear across the country after some deaths hit way too close to home. You'd understand why it's ground-zero if you grew up there. Used to be the literal center of the American industrial revolution. For the past couple decades all factories are abandoned and you can't find a job pumping gas with a college degree. That combined with lack of any healthy recreational infrastructure or anything to do at all, opiates get real appealing when you can't get a job, can't get into a psychiatrist, and deal with winter for half the year.

Basically, this is an area that perfectly illustrates the social and economic factors that have led to more kids dying from ODs than in the 1970s or any other period. No jobs programs, lack of basic healthy social activities in these towns, lack of decent healthcare insurance and even then no doctors taking patients. No money, not nearly enough beds for recovery programs while at the same time no access to harm-reduction programs in place. Increased social isolation in communities and lack of mental health resources. ALL OF THIS happened to coincide with a sudden boom in access to cheap fentanyl analogues synthesized in China and Eastern Europe was like a spark in a gunpowder keg.
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you're dead on.

i think the media is totally ignoring the other factors at play such as economics. blaming it totally on overprescribing

u should be writing for major news media on the subject. not some tool bag from high society new york parapharasing shit from a DEA website which is the level of understanding we are getting right now from "journalists"
 
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Indeed, economics reasons together with drugs has led this epidemy to another level.
 
LucidSDreamr said:
why doesn't anyone ever blame adderall for the methamphetamine epidemic?
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It absolutely is, adderall wasn't approved until 1996, but before that it was called orbetrol, and before that benzedrine was over prescribed in the 50's which led to the black market producing methamphetamine in the 60's, which lead to superlabs in the 90's.

The pharmaceutical industry is directly responsible for the meth epidemic.
 
I believe that similarly Oxycodone has been one of the causes why lots of people have turned to heroin.
 
Agreed^
Overprescribing in general did a lot of damage. The pill mills in Florida were world famous/notorious, and I'm sure they have created many-a opiate addicts who all of a sudden wouldn't get served anymore when the laws changed and pill mills got shut down. So these folks who got cut off turn to buying pills off the street at first, when that becomes too expensive comes the heroin. That's about how I imagine it went for a lot of folks.
 
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