I believe the stigma will continue for a few reasons. One and the biggest and most influential is the media. Whatever they put out there, people eat up and believe and when it comes to messages they want to implant in peoples heads its done very calculating and over more than one generation. I think that meth is right there with the heroin stigma. You hear people say, "they were on something" when in fact they have no idea what is wrong with somebody and it could be a number of reasons that arent drug related.
if you actually look at the statistics, pharma drugs create so much more damage than other "illegal" drugs combined. 100s of 1000s of people die just from complications or side effects of legal drugs put out there. Not to mention the addiction and overdose rate. The FDA is one of the biggest cartels in the world with areas of corruption that go unpunished. Like a company feeding money to them to get a drug pushed onto the market without proper testing. Also the scientist at the FDA are some of the most underpayed out there so you can imagine how easy it might be for someone to take a little bribe here and there.
Another reason is the homeless or squater kids in bigger cities. Im not blaming them but simply what the media tells us about those people. In my city, it has pretty big open market for drugs, and what you have is a mix of business professionals and the average worker mixed with these people and what it does is further cement to the uneducated person that its all about drugs and every single person is doped up beyond their mind. Its in their face and drugs is the first thing that pops in their mind. Some are, some arent. But what happens, is thats becomes their view of people that do drugs and if you do drugs you must be very close to becoming that babbling vagrent that they see on their way home from work. Or if you do drugs, your very unpredictable and could go off and start raping and pillaging at any moment. They dont even think about how maybe some people in this world can use drugs recreationally or can use a drug and then not use for a period of time. They think drugs=junkie for everyone.
But those same people dont think about how alchohol is involved cause thats ok cause its legal right. You can go to the bar everyday and get smashed, like a few of my friends, and go to work still under the influence and thats ok.
Like someone said earlier, heroin to the average person also means the needle which is associated with all the wonderful stds and diseases with unsanitary use. They know about that but their unaware, cause the media isnt gonna put this out there, the countries that have the places you can shoot up with clean equipment and how the rate of disease has gone down.
in comparison to the pill addicts, i think its as simple has it comes off a doctors note, then your not has bad as the person shoving the needle in their arm. its more accepted because alot of people have had to take that medicine before so they remove themselves from the "junkie" aspect of it and i think thats where alot of people can go wrong and end up with a pill addiction. They think "well, im not as bad as them" when in fact they are no different and inches away from people they look at with such disgust.
Heroin is placed at the top supposedly by how addicting it is. Im not saying that it is not addicting, but i have trouble thinking its at the top cause for myself, my norco addiction absolutly ripped me up and completely changed who i was at the time. Compared to when i was on heroin, i was able to maintain everything in my life to a certain degree and when i quit it, it wasnt nearly has bad as the norcos. Not even close. I dont have cravings today for it and i was able to keep my tolerence pretty steady and i just smoked, didnt iv it ever. Compared to norcos where i was up to 30 a day in a matter of months.
When i was strung out on norcos, i used to see homeless kids and i would think to myself, "who am i joking, im no different than these people and the only thing that seperates me from them is the fragile roof over my head and my enablers." I dont think most people think this way trying to seperate themselves from that.
i have a feeling and its a depressing one that the stigma of drugs, especially in America, will be here for a very long time and it will take alot to get rid of the so many false sitgmas that have been engrained over not one, but many generations. There is just so much propaganda out there with "examples" that i believe it will take our kids and theirs kids to be smart enough to see what the reality of the other side of drug use can be.
