OxyContin is the gateway drug to heroin addiction south of Boston

erosion

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OxyContin is the gateway drug to heroin addiction south of Boston
Boston Herald
March 25. 2007



BROCKTON, Mass. -- A growing number of young adults experimenting with the powerful painkiller OxyContin are getting hooked on heroin, triggering a spike in drug overdoses, broken lives and pressure on emergency services south of Boston.

”It is alarming,” Abington Police Chief David Majenski told The Enterprise newspaper. ”We have made a tremendous amount of heroin arrests and it is not slowing down at all.”

The link between OxyContin abuse by teens and addiction to heroin is tenacious. Several recovering addicts said they got ”high” on OxyContin while in high school, got hooked, then turned to heroin when buying the painkiller on the street got too expensive, the newspaper reported Sunday.

At least 2,682 people were treated in emergency rooms for opioid-related abuse, dependency or poisoning between 2003 and 2005 in the region, according to the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy.
An examination of death certificates filed in 28 communities shows that 74 people have died of opiate-related overdoses, including heroin, between Jan. 1, 2004 and Aug. 31, 2006, the newspaper said, citing its examination of death certificates filed in 28 local communities.

Those numbers translate to devastating tragedies to relatives of the victims.
”These people are not dirt bags,” said Hanover’s Theresa Cairo, whose daughter, Jill, died of an overdose at age 24. ”They are intelligent, beautiful people. It is someone who looks like your daughter. It is someone who could be your daughter.”
The problem adds a burden to taxpayers and saps resources from emergency services.

In Whitman, fire department emergency medical technicians responded to 20 overdoses from September to November. One person died.
The narcotic-antidote Narcan was administered in nearly half of the overdose calls attended to by fire department’s emergency medical staff last year in Easton, fire chief Thomas F. Stone said.

As heroin -- once considered as a problem of the urban streets -- moves up and out, desperate families are turning to the courts, pleading with judges to order the arrest and committal of their children to treatment programs for up to 30 days.

The problem ”has no psychological profile, it has no socio-economic profile,” said Dr. Michael L. Dern, a Brockton physician who has treated young heroin addicts.

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As heroin -- once considered as a problem of the urban streets -- moves up and out, desperate families are turning to the courts, pleading with judges to order the arrest and committal of their children to treatment programs for up to 30 days.

Yeah, fuck you. That will work out well.
 
This story is all too familiar for me, as i imagine it is to many other people. I dont blame oxy for my heroin addiction, i blame myself haha....

Thats the wya it happened to a lot of my friends, they got hooked on OC and when it got too expensive they would drive into the city to cop. They ended up getting strung out, one died, a few OD'd and almost died. And im sure having these kids placed in mandatory drug rehabs will work out great....rehab wont do a freaking thing for a person if they have no interest in being there. Yea they have some pretty powerful brainwashers in rehab sometimes, but if a person doesnt want to quit, no one will be able to make them....
 
I could see the correlation, but how far back do you want to take the whole gateway thing? Shouldn't pot, alcohol, and tobacco be included?

And for the people who started using OC first and then progressed to heroin(including myself), I don't blame the OC for my heroin use nor do I see it as its gateway drug. OC was just my real introduction to opiates as a whole, and I've settled on heroin for obvious reasons. OC could have easily been substituted by other opiates, and I would have still ended up on dope.
 
In my opinion, the gateway theory does hold credit. Not because its the "natural progression", but its just how the black market is set up.

You go to dealer to get pot, try other stuff and network from there. If heroin is cheaper, and does the same thing for you that oxy does - it makes sense to move to heroin.

If the market was regulated, a buyer could purchase a drug without being exposed to harder drugs, and their crowd, at least in theory. One thing is for sure though, nearly any system is better than the one we have now.
 
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OC is easier to cop as a youngster in many peoples cases. I know people who can get dope and do OC and I know people who can get OC that do dope. I hardly ever messed with OC before I did dope. But I know of places where its easier to get heroin than OCs and vice versa.

I think is a question of geography, preference and age... but in many cases OC is just easier to get
 
^
I always figured it was mostly a decision about money. Being that oc typically costs quite a bit more than dope. Hmm, maybe some people wouldn't have switched if that wasn't true.
 
n4k33n said:
In my opinion, the gateway theory does hold credit. Not because its the "natural progression", but its just how the black market is set up.

You go to dealer to get pot, try other stuff and network from there. If heroin is cheaper, and does the same thing for you that oxy does - it makes sense to move to heroin.

If the market was regulated, a buyer could purchase a drug without being exposed to harder drugs, and their crowd, at least in theory. One thing is for sure though, nearly any system is better than the one we have now.

I agree. I never bought in to the gateway drug theory when applied to marijuana, but when applied to opiates, it definitley holds true. For me it started with vicodin, that got expensive and stopped working, so I went to OC's, that got too expensive and I moved to heroin. A lot of people who I know that either are or were addicted to heroin, moved on to it the same way I did.
 
I think I tried heroin before I tried oxy, or if I did do oxy, then it was only once or twice before trying heroin. I've had my problems with morphine and other opiates such as percocet and vicodin, heroin never have and I see it as too dirty to do often, and oxy's, well they're not always around, and I'd honestly rather just get dope it's much cheaper.
 
I tried heroin before I tried oxy too. I was refereing to addiction ( i dont know if everyone else was or not, though) when I was talking about oxy being a gateway drug.
 
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