Yeah, not so fast.
That maybe the largest demographic of who is dying and how they are dying but it is in no way a comprehensive categorization of who is affected.
Many affluent communities are seeing their high school and college age kids getting hooked on pain pills. Then when the pills become too expensive they switch to heroin. Then when the herion doesn’t work they switch to fentanyl. This happened in the upper middle class town where I grew up. They have had many high school kids die from heroin in the past 10 years.
There are many successful middle aged people who have never taken drugs before who get prescribed opiate pain pills for a legitimate reason, get hooked and their life is ruined.
The drug companies lied when they came out with Oxycontin. They sold it to doctors under the guise that they were less addictive.
Comparing opiates to guns is really stupid. Guns do not physically compel you to use them. Opiates do.
I think it is the doctor’s responsibility to monitor his patient’s use of prescription opiates. If they are abusing them or selling them, he should cut them off. Maybe doctors should require drug tests before prescribing opiates or getting a script refilled. If you are a confirmed illegal drug user, maybe you shouldn’t be prescribed opiates (even if you have an injury). Or maybe you should be more closely monitored to ensure you don’t get addicted.
Bottom line, heroin has been around for a long, long time and never got to epidemic status until after a 20 year flood of “safe” and legal Oxycontin into our communities.
“Bottom line, heroin has been around for a long, long time and never got to epidemic status until after a 20 year flood of “safe” and legal Oxycontin into our communities.”
However, your note over-simplifies a serious problem and it is unfortunately untrue. I encourage reading up on heroin use and its history in the U.S. as well as the current issues with fentanyl/car-fentanyl importation and smuggling, and also refer to what, specifically, is killing people and why heroin and fentanyl use has paralleled the rising death rate.
People who tell you that they are spike junkies because a Dr prescribed them pain killers and that led to china/fentanyl use are lying.
Apologies, but Oxy? That hasn’t been a mainstream problem since the early 2000’s? You need to look into snorting Neurontin, Hydros, Roxys, etc and get caught up on the current Rx meds.
My bottom line is that the public is being misled by the same liberal media they distrust on every other issue so that the public will blame Doctors and Pharm companies for a reason created by liberalism itself. It is a blame deflection issue.
Respectfully.