The 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health has been released. Study this very long and detailed report and you will see that for some drugs, the numbers of Americans using them have gone down. Not so for heroin.
The graph below shows the numbers of heroin users among those 12 and older. You can see how much the numbers have gone up since 2003.
Past Month and Past Year Heroin Use Among Persons Aged 12 and Older: 2002-2012 Source: National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings, 2012.
This report just takes you through 2012. Some of heroin use numbers in 2013 were up again.
Past year heroin use:
2012 – 669,000
2013 – 681,000
Past month heroin use (considered a current user):
2012 – 335,000
2013 – 289,000
Lifetime heroin use (meaning ever used in their lifetime):
2012 – 4,565,000
2013 – 4,812,000
Relationship between Heroin and Prescription Opiate Abuse
By now, many people realize that a primary reason for this increase is that too many people were given strong opiate-type painkillers for chronic pain, and once addicted they often resort to heroin as a cheaper, easier-to-obtain alternative. These painkillers, especially oxycodone, were developed for exceedingly severe pain. End-of-life pain, cancer pain. But in the late 1990s, a campaign swept through the medical community, promoting the proper treatment of pain. Patients were being undertreated, this campaign stated. And oxycodone was the right treatment and was not likely to result in addiction.
This new philosophy led to widespread prescribing of these pain medications, without doctors knowing how to spot addiction or abuse, and without their knowing how to treat these problems if they came up. Once addicted, many people later turn to heroin as more accessible alternative.
There’s a short video from the Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing that, in just a few minutes, explains how we got into the opioid abuse and addiction mess we are in. If you have ever dealt with the opiate addiction of a loved one, or watched a friend become dependent on the synthetic form of these drugs – opioids – then you should take the five minutes plus to watch this video. You’ll see doctors explaining how they were misled. This video includes a clip from a promotional video for OxyContin and will show you what doctors were told.
Gradually, the medical industry is catching up. Doctors are leery of prescribing painkillers with the same freedom they used to. But this creates a secondary problem of driving their addicted patients to find heroin when they can’t find the pills they are addicted to. Chemically, it’s about the same drug, either way.
This video will make a lot of sense to anyone who’s had a loved one become addiction to pain medication or heroin, either one. But it’s not a solution. Neither is just putting the person on a replacement drug like methadone or buprenorphine. That simply prolongs the addiction.
It is possible to get clean and healthy. To no longer be dependent on these drugs. Our graduates tell us that they don’t have to live “one day at a time,” they have recovered from their addictions. Many do not experience cravings or they are manageable without anguish and stress.
I invite you to learn more about the Narconon program and the solution it offers for addiction to opiates or any other drug. Call 1-800-775-8750 today to learn more.