Scary Truths About Heroin Addiction

The life of every case worker I know, whether in Substance Abuse, Child Welfare, Mental Health, Emergency Assistance, or Juvenile Justice, has been affected by the new epidemic of heroin addiction. Nobody wants to talk about it, but it is everywhere; and not just among urban street kids or Chinatown's opium dens.

By over-prescribing painkillers like Oxycontin, Vicodin, and Percocet, the medical profession has made heroin addicts out of school teachers, soccer moms, and your next door neighbor's husband. From 1999 to 2010, the sale of opioid painkillers increased 300 percent in this country. Enough prescription painkillers were prescribed in 2010 alone to 'medicate every American adult around-the-clock' for one month.

I have a brother who is a 6th grade teacher; his wife a teacher, as well. My brother in law is a police sergeant. My other brother is an attorney. They all live in the same county in NJ. I also have a friend who is a social worker who I was speaking with the other night – about this very topic. In our once - seemingly innocent, bedroom community… heroin usage is now a troubling issue in our schools and neighborhoods - that all five of these people can attest to.

Heroin's resurgence has moved the drug from the dregs of society to cities, nice neighborhoods and rural communities. The drug's addicts are no longer gristly, haggard men and wafer-thin women but young adults, high school graduates and college students. There are countless articles and news reports on the Internet about the heroin problem that is occurring in many communities across our country.

By typing in a quick Google search using the keywords “Heroin problem” + “Your state” – you’ll retrieve dozens of articles about young adults and high school kids that are getting into trouble with the drug. We used to see it in dope houses, and now you are seeing it in high school kids?? It's pretty unbelievable that young kids are getting tied into this horrible drug. There is a new trend on the rise - young adults making up a large percentage of the people who stand in front of judges for heroin-related crimes. The trend of 17- to 25-year-olds is tragic and unfortunate. 

By now, my social worker friend was shouting at me over the phone.

"They tried to fix the growing addiction problem by reformulating the prescription opioids to make them harder to abuse. That didn't work!" he shouted.

"The Mexican drug dealers saw their opportunity, and they started to produce a massive supply of cheap heroin that they would deliver directly to your home. Some of my clients were paying as little as $4.00 a bag. Welcome to the 'it's not our problem' clean world of suburban America. It's unbelievable how many of my clients have died," he shouted in frustration.

I had seen an NBC special on heroin addiction a few years ago that was quite alarming. But, then, I never heard any more about it. I guess "I thought we had licked the problem somehow," I told my friend. 

"Licked the problem!" he shouted again.

"Did you know that one person dies every 36 minutes from an opioid drug overdose? Heroin and opioid pain pills have killed more than 125,000 people. That's an epidemic my well-meaning, clueless friend (I didn’t take his comment personally...)Everybody talks about Ebola...no one's ever seen it. No one talks about heroin addiction, but everybody knows somebody who's addicted. I guarantee it." 

I share this phone call with you not because I think you don't know about this epidemic, but because I think we all need to think about how effectively we avoid facing people or situations we find threatening or unpleasant. Because heroin addiction presents such a distasteful picture of needles and tourniquets to our mind, we, the general public, would rather go into denial than face what clearly has become a serious social problem that many are already calling an epidemic. We have done the same thing with mental illness. Let us not repeat our failure with heroin addiction.