Heroin now kills more people than gun violence!
I just can't get worked up about it.
The level of addiction that eventually leads to fatal overdoses is, itself, a form of temporary suicide for a LOT of addicts. Yet another grim factoid that made me bail on finishing that psych degree.
That there are lots more people overdosing, to me, says that there's a lot more people seeking a sure way to escape their predicament. That they manage to do it permanently is tragic to those who loved them.
Sadly, there's not much that can be done except find a reason for them to want to exist in the actual world and not seek to escape it. Just like suicide by swifter and surer means, that reason might not exist.
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There is a part of that that's true.
ReplyDeleteI think one part that isn't talked about enough is doctors giving opiate pain killers for chronic conditions. This leads to high drug tolerance, so a need for escalating dosages, and then Opioid-induced hyperalgesia, which leads to a DESIRE for escalating dosages, and a real concern that the pain felt is break-through pain, not induced pain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid-induced_hyperalgesia
Then something has to give in this cycle, and with this cycle addition is at 100% probability, and eventually the doctor won't give you more dope, and you either bare the pain, clean up and live, or look for an alternative, which is street opiates, which consists of REALLY expensive pain pills, or amazingly cheap Heroin.
In the 90s they told us "Eventually everybody here will know somebody affected by HIV/AIDS", which turned out to be true.
Now today we're all going to know somebody who got hooked on Heroin thanks to poor medical practices by their doctor.
I chose, "bear the pain, clean up and live," for the record. Because in the early 90's when the VA decided your pain was chronic they cut you off rather than increase the doses.
DeleteThose were some hard months because my legs HURT.
As far as fatalities go, I'd wonder how many of those are caused by varying purity of the drugs. One of several reasons I don't do drugs is that you don't know what you're getting! Heroin is "cut" with all sorts of things that I, for one, would not want to slam into my veins. Not to mention that a dealer who wants to get rid of an unwanted customer (say, someone who informed on another dealer) can supply what is known as a "hot shot," meaning 100%-pure heroin. Taken at the dosage most addicts (expecting "cut" heroin) use, this is a sure OD...and a foolproof way to commit murder.
ReplyDelete