The situation is already wildly out of control. Recently the drug companies have begun reformulating their drugs to make them harder to abuse, and there has been a crackdown on the availability.
An estimated 20 million people were using opiate and synthetic opiate drugs “recreationally”, with an unknown number addicted. In short order, they discovered that very expensive $50-100 a pill black market drugs can be replaced by heroin at a quarter of that price. It is a stronger drug, too.
Immediately, in the “hillbilly zone” from Tennessee to Virginia, where the prescription drugs were popular, there was a big jump in heroin overdoses. Next in the suburbs of Chicago, the Pacific northwest, Florida, Maine and southern California. Basically nationwide, the number of heroin addicts is skyrocketing.
The heroin, “Mexican brown”, is common and cheap, and while addicts think they will just smoke it or snort it, within two weeks they are injecting it.
Demographically, the junkies are a worry, because they are not poor people, but middle and upper middle class, with money, political power, and determination. If they want heroin, they will get heroin.
My comments and concerns were regarding legally prescribed prescription drugs. Our government has a tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I can just imagine a scenario where the druggies continue to obtain their illegal drugs but people with legitimate unremitting pain are denied legitimate drugs.