Posted on 12/19/2002 7:44:47 AM PST by MrLeRoy
Low prices and increased purity have caused heroin use to skyrocket in Massachusetts, with a new study showing the drug is the No. 1 reason for admissions to treatment programs and hospital detox units as well as overdose deaths.
"This is a drug epidemic permeating every corner of our commonwealth, and as a society, we need to aggressively fight to end the human suffering," said Dr. Howard Koh, commissioner of the Department of Public Health, which issued the report yesterday.
"Heroin deaths are suffocating our society," he said.
The DPH report showed heroin is the most common drug for which people in the state are seeking substance abuse treatment, with 37 percent of those entering treatment last year saying it was for heroin addiction.
In fiscal year 2002, which ended June 30, some 42 percent of the people entering state-supported substance abuse treatment programs reported using heroin within the past year, compared with 19 percent in 1992.
And 60 percent of the people entering detox programs reported using heroin within the past year, the same percentage as for alcohol.
"Heroin use has increased dramatically over the past 10 years," said Teresa Anderson of the agency's Bureau of Substance Abuse Services.
Since 1996, rates of opioid-related hospitalizations soared 74 percent, including a 230 percent rise among those in the 15-24 age group and a 150 percent jump among those aged 45-54.
The highest rates were among men aged 25-44, however.
Opioids include heroin, codeine, morphine and oxycodone.
Fatal heroin overdoses jumped 156 percent from 1990 to 1998 and another 10 percent between 1999 and 2000, the report said. Fatality rates were highest for those aged 35-44.
Deborah Klein Walker, associate commissioner for programs and prevention, cited lower prices and increased purity as reasons why heroin use is soaring.
"Heroin use has continued to rise over the last few years," said Daniel Mumbauer, president of the Highpoint Treatment Center in Plymouth and New Bedford.
"More than half of all folks admitted to inpatient units for detox, their drug of choice is heroin," he said.
"It's cheap and accessible," he said.
A bag of heroin now costs only about $4, Mumbauer said.
"It's cheaper than a six-pack of beer," he said.
That makes it attractive to younger people, he noted.
And the fact that the heroin these days is very pure allows people to get high from snorting it instead of shooting it - at least at first.
That's another reason why younger people are willing to try it, Mumbauer said.
In the end, however, "intravenous is still the most popular way of getting high from heroin," he said.
Intravenous use of drugs is linked to transmission of HIV and hepatitis C, Klein Walker said.
State police Sgt. Al Zani of the Essex County Drug Task Force in Lynn said a bag of heroin that cost $20 in the 1970s now costs $4 - and the purity is up from about 5 percent to anywhere from 30 to 80 percent.
"We're seeing the consequences," he said. "You're seeing teenagers doing it. You see a lot of high school students."
DPH officials said they hope to use the report to improve programs aimed at prevention and treatment.
"Treatment works," Koh said.
I can agree it's mostly anecdotal, but man some of those anecdotes are scary.
Very well put. I have no reason to reply to A2J's dishonest blatherings.
That seems perfectly logical and that's what I've been advocating for years (except the public beating part, maybe jail time for dealers). I can't see using the full force of the FEDGOV and spending billions of dollars a year harassing and arresting people who pull a plant out of their backyard and smoke it.
Oh I seriously doubt it. What a mindless sentence.I'm not a rocket scientist, but I tend to think, in many of these cases, it was a "lack of discipline by the parents early in the childrens youth " that allows this type behavior to develop.
That was my thought. Now that we have made it safe for them to grow again.
I'm trying to figure out the reason you posted these numbers.
And death is the only criterion? Not long-term illness, family break-up, moral degeneration, infringement of rights? Just death.
Higher rates of addiction and death a "good thing?"
That's why libertarians will NEVER be taken seriously.
Why did you willingly ignore the next sentence of my statement? Seems you deleted it for the express purpose of making an attack, that if the comment was included you could not have made. Here is my ENTIRE statement...
This is a good thing. After all, Drug Czar John Walters recently said that MJ is more dangerous and more of a problem than Heroine. Looks like people are taking his advice and switching from MJ to Heroine.
I don't doubt that well disciplined children are less likely to grow up to use heroin. However, assuming that heroin use in MA has 'skyrocketed' recently (as sources in the article state), that seems unlikely to have been caused by a skyrocketing of bad parenting ~18 years ago.
I've already explained to you my lack of interest in threads where conservatives tell other conservatives how terrible liberals are; what about that was so hard for you to understand?
So should we continue the current phony "War On Drugs" or not?
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