Heroin Epidemic.

[zacb]

There has been a large heroin epidemic in the States for the past few years, and it is not just sweeping large cities. Now it is starting to creep into smaller towns and wreack havoc. Why do you there there is such an epidemic? Pot legalization? Bad economy? Bad demographics?

[Adama]

There has been a large heroin epidemic in the States for the past few years, and it is not just sweeping large cities. Now it is starting to creep into smaller towns and wreack havoc. Why do you there there is such an epidemic? Pot legalization? Bad economy? Bad demographics?

The glorification of drug use in film.

[S_Parc]

There has been a large heroin epidemic in the States for the past few years, and it is not just sweeping large cities. Now it is starting to creep into smaller towns and wreack havoc. Why do you there there is such an epidemic? Pot legalization? Bad economy? Bad demographics?

It's a lot simpler than you might think.

For the past decade or so, Oxycontin, not too chemically dissimilar from morphine, had been widely abused prescription pain killer by a large segment of the population for chronic pain. Thus, pharmacy robberies have been going up over time and this isn't just the cities, it includes suburbs and rural towns across the country.

Eventually, once a user habituates to Oxycontin, the next level up is heroin. Thus, the gateway for the new heroin epidemic has been other prescription opiates.

[onethousandknives]

There has been a large heroin epidemic in the States for the past few years, and it is not just sweeping large cities. Now it is starting to creep into smaller towns and wreack havoc. Why do you there there is such an epidemic? Pot legalization? Bad economy? Bad demographics?

It's a lot simpler than you might think.

For the past decade or so, Oxycontin, not too chemically dissimilar from morphine, had been widely abused prescription pain killer by a large segment of the population for chronic pain. Thus, pharmacy robberies have been going up over time and this isn't just the cities, it includes suburbs and rural towns across the country.

Eventually, once a user habituates to Oxycontin, the next level up is heroin. Thus, the gateway for the new heroin epidemic has been other prescription opiates.

Well, this issue is something you could write a book about, and that people do write books about, but I think mostly the prescription to street route is the most common reason why in USA. One thing I think, and I've not really heard this theory anywhere, but I feel like the reason things aren't quite as bad in a lot of other countries is the legality/OTC of codeine. Obviously codeine is still an opiate and a narcotic, and not particularly great and wonderful for you. But I feel like codeine is used as a stopgap drug, if that makes sense. It's something stronger than ibuprofen/etc, but it's still less strong and less addictive, especially in the low dose OTC dosages allowed in most countries, than taking the other prescription opiates (oxycontin, Percoset, Opana, etc...) so if someone has some kind of pain in another country they most of the time can just go to the pharmacist and buy low dose codeine and that's it. Whereas in USA the choice is NSAIDs, or stupid strong opiates. And then with the strong opiates comes much stronger addiction, and then if they run out of pills and/or can't get a prescription from their doctor, they buy heroin on the street. As far as prices go, it tends to make sense, as a single dose of heroin would be say, $10, whereas a pill might be $25, of course generally from pills to heroin is a big jump for most people, but more people take it than you'd think. I found needles with brown residue fairly frequently outside when I lived in a somewhat upscale apartment complex of mostly white people.

I guess with this, too, is unhealth in USA. With obesity comes a lot more stress on the joints, and with a very sedentary population, especially the middle aged/elderly that most other countries (like Japan) whose elderly could literally run circles around them. I find it weird when older people complain about simple tasks "hurting so much" like bending down to do the dishes or something and how they're in constant pain. Maybe they are really in constant agony. Who knows. But, I've known other old people who while not running marathons and stuff, are in their 70s, take no drugs, eat fairly reasonably, and can still do most everything a young person can, ie, work on their car, paint their house, etc, and their "secret" is they just kept doing those things forever and plan to do them until they drop dead.

One thing I wonder about too, is the thought process of pain, and I feel like what many people experience for pain is either hypersensitivity, or lack of adaptation. If you're inflexible, and you go to try to touch your toes, it'll hurt. But then someone who is super flexible can palm the ground with no pain whatsoever in his muscles. Eventually in this way, the pain was trained away. So what I feel like in USA for pain management, besides the obesity and GMO food and all that issue causing massive issues for people, is this hypersensitivity you can see in most of society today. Instead of "I'm tired and my arms hurt, but I gotta get this done" and continuing on with the task, most people just quit, or take drugs to mask the temporary pain that they may adapt to and not feel anymore. And this applies to physical pain, and mental pain as well. Obviously sometimes, drugs are needed as the body/mind is not adapting and/or the pain or stimulus is too high to reasonably just adapt to and let the body normalize (ie, surgery.)

Even with doctors, instead of encouraging or trying to tell someone a way they can do something without drugs, or using less harsh/strong drugs and/or supplements, instead their first option is just throw drugs at it. For example, I was 19, overweight/obese, and had high blood pressure. The doctor giving me my physical said I should really consider taking blood pressure medication and said "I don't think you can solve this just through exercise and diet alone." But 4 months later, I did exactly that, dropped a bunch of weight, ate better, exercised, and my blood pressure went back to normal and healthy range. So if they're gonna give pills to a 19 year old who has high blood pressure AND specifically say it's not likely it can be solved naturally with exercise and diet alone, we're pretty f***ed.

I guess though, one other big reason, and again, this is physical and mental, is USA's mentality of "everything is great!" The cognitive dissonance of most people in USA I think grinds them down hard. You're told "this is the richest country in the world" then you drive downtown and see homeless people, run down buildings, police everywhere with rifles, this wears on you mentally. You're given "LIFE IS ONE BIG PARTY AT THE CLUB BRAH" music (that also encourages drug use) to listen to on the radio, when you're working 50 hours a week and live in a crappy apartment and are in debt and overweight. Obviously some people in the world have worse lives than people in USA, but I think USA is unique in that it's one of the few places where you must pretend everything is GREAT ALL THE TIME. So to make up for this cognitive dissonance, people use drugs to make themselves feel good and force their feelings to match with their thoughts, that "this is the greatest country ever" and "everything is great" and "How are you doing?" "Oh, wonderful, yourself?" As someone brought up around here, if someone has social anxiety because they're 300lbs and don't like the way they look, doctors instead of saying "well lose weight" (or hell, even giving them weight loss medication) instead will give them an anti-anxiety med that could make them even heavier but will help get rid of the "feelings" without solving the problem.

Even psychological treatment nowadays is basically teaching cognitive dissonance as a legitimate thought process, via CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy. If you think to yourself "I am ugly because I have acne and am obese" CBT will tell you oh no, this is an illogical belief, you're not ugly, you're beautiful the way you are and then even give you mantras to tell yourself when said thought comes up. It's very interesting in that we're taught your feelings do not matter enough to require a change of action in yourself, or from other people, but they do matter enough for you to take drugs to change them (in psychology's case, usually SSRIs or benzos.) In fact, most business in USA is built upon this cognitive dissonance. People are sold fashion and beauty products, not as icing on the cake, but with the promise of transforming you even if you're unhealthy and obese. People are sold things like Rent-A-Center, spending a significant portion of income eating out at a shit restaurant like TGI Friday's, and "needing" a 60" TV so they can be "rich" even if they're making minimum wage and living in the projects.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant, but these are my guesses as to why. I know this problem a bit personally as one of my longest time online friends is now addicted to opiates, now buys and takes heroin, and has been hospitalized for overdose 3 times now, and when I met him he did no drugs, then did weed, then got injured and got prescribed opiates, but also took a few "for fun" with friends, and now is on some crazy cocktail of shit, opiates, stimulants (ritalin derivative), benzos, and also takes heroin on the side. While he's a very smart guy, he's severely hampered by this drug addiction, hangs with ridiculously sketchy people who could get him killed, and it is overall not pretty. And I guess an irony for this board is, he still thinks "America is the best country ever" and has a fodness/obsession with the US military. Another person I know affected (or maybe not too much) is my aunt who takes a boatload of prescription opiates now because she's over 300lbs and it hurts for her to walk, strangely, she even suggested my sister to take some of her pills for headaches. wtf? It does seem they do want others dragged down into their misery, even my friend suggested I give some of my mom's spare opiate pills a try, since I've never taken any sort of opiate or any painkiller stronger than naproxen (she does not take them constantly, only gets them for surgery and generally discontinues them in about half the recommended time to keep taking them.)

This country sucks shit and everyone's on drugs and I hate it.

[Moretorque]

There has been a large heroin epidemic in the States for the past few years, and it is not just sweeping large cities. Now it is starting to creep into smaller towns and wreack havoc. Why do you there there is such an epidemic? Pot legalization? Bad economy? Bad demographics?

It's a lot simpler than you might think.

For the past decade or so, Oxycontin, not too chemically dissimilar from morphine, had been widely abused prescription pain killer by a large segment of the population for chronic pain. Thus, pharmacy robberies have been going up over time and this isn't just the cities, it includes suburbs and rural towns across the country.

Eventually, once a user habituates to Oxycontin, the next level up is heroin. Thus, the gateway for the new heroin epidemic has been other prescription opiates.

Actually it's even simpler than that I bet, this is a play out of the British empire play book to destabilize a country you want to take down.

The CIA is claimed to be the biggest drug trafficker in the US as well as the world.

[S_Parc]

Actually it's even simpler than that I bet, this is a play out of the British empire play book to destabilize a country you want to take down.

The CIA is claimed to be the biggest drug trafficker in the US as well as the world.

Perhaps this is the case. One thing is for certain and that's that Oxycontin abuse has affected nearly every single community I know about.

The degree of separation is scary. It's basically one. I know of at least one person, in every region of the country, who knows someone (family, classmate, co-worker, or friend), who's got a prescription opiate problem.