The same set of parents can raise both a fully functioning contributor to society and a child who becomes addicted to drugs. As others have said, lots of kids (and adults) start down this path because of pain medications.
OT: Special Report on Heroin in Paterson
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The same set of parents can raise both a fully functioning contributor to society and a child who becomes addicted to drugs. As others have said, lots of kids (and adults) start down this path because of pain medications.
This is not really the case anymore. They've really scaled back writing scripts. Bigger issue is little bobby stealing them from mom and dad
It must be nice, that bubble you live in.
Sadly it is easier in many parts of Jersey to buy heroin on the street than it is to get products like Sudafed from your pharmacy.
The government has begun to curb the production of certain opiates. In 2017 the hydrocodone production will be decreased by , I believe, 65% which sounds like a lot but ever since it was moved from CIll to CII the usage has gone down. Oxycodone production, which is the drug of choice these days will be decreased by around 20-30%
Agree but only because a shit load of Dr's in the area got busted...but yeah, spoiled little rich kids in their BMW's need that extra spending cash- so it is easy to raid mom/dad's medicine cabinet because mom/dad have so much of that crap they won't even miss a bottle or two
If all that was true "demand" would not have gone up so much in recent years. Kids dont wake-up and say "hey ima try and be a heroin addict for awhile", When you let thousands of cartel people in undeterred and let them spread around cheap drugs to kids demand goes up. But that's common sense which died at PSU when Joe started crapping his pants and coaching from a booth.
Heroin is freakin' everywhere down the shore and NJ. It was super expensive when I was growing up, but thanks to the war in Afghanistan the US controls the supply and dumps it all around the world. And it's $5 - $8 a pop now. It's funny too as it's almost exclusively a white mans drug down the shore. And the best part according to my police officer friends is that when dealers add the tranquilizer Fetinol to it or the Elephant Tranquilizer Carfentanil to it, kids don't wake up after overdosing, even if the police or doctors use Narcan on them.
Heroin has been a major problem in urban areas for at least the last sixty years. Kids in poor neighborhoods would get hooked and eventually they would overdose. I read many accounts of this when I was a kid in Queens. When I started college in 1968, I was very distressed to learn that there was someone on the dorm floor who regularly shot up. This is not a new problem and can't be blamed just on kids growing up today. Heroin got to be a major problem when it started being used as a substitute for morphine as a pain-killer.
I work in the field and can say this epidemic doesn't discriminate. I've worked with some of the most caring, involved and vigilant parents who have lost their children. Absentee parents are not a common theme here.
To better understand the history I suggest reading from one of Rutgers' own...
http://greenagel.com/the-american-heroin-epidemic-volume-i/
To better understand the history I suggest reading from one of Rutgers' own...
http://greenagel.com/the-american-heroin-epidemic-volume-i/
By cartel do you mean the pharmaceutical industry?
By the way, nobody wakes up and decides to become a heroin addict, for any reason.
Opioids are unbelievably strong these days. Like drinking grain alcohol when you are used to 80 proof. There was a great series of articles in the WSJ a few weeks that profiled not only the possible causes of the epidemic, but sobering profiles of the variety of OD'd users. This epidemic scares me more than anything else for my kids
If we want to play the blame game then let's just blame the Viet Nam war and the heroin-addicted soldiers who came back to a country that lost its manufacturing base and no longer had jobs for them.
Blame is for later, treatment is what's needed now.
Yes, treatment is needed but we do need to understand the problem. This is a drug that hooks you in immediately and very difficult to kick the habit.
You do realize in 2014 75% of heroin users started with prescription opioid. In 1960's 80% of heroin users first opioid was heroin. Those opioids are not coming from Mexican drug cartels with cheap product. It is coming from parents medicine cabinets, friends and doctors. The reason behind the sharp increase has been directly correlated with the increase in prescription of opioids. In particular it coincided with the marketing of "safer" time released opioids by drug companies. These safer drugs were still addictive and could be easily doctored. The demand for heroin is created by use of other opioids and the increasing cost of those opioids. Even if you eliminated the entire supply of heroin your still going to have a mass of opioid addicts. Stopping heroin is trying to stop the problem to late and not the going after the root cause.
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The lack of research and understanding of addiction is scary. Most programs still utilize variation of 12 step programs that based on one mans success.
You can take opioids without getting addicted ? I'm assuming since they are a parent prescription. It's when you're taking a lot that you get addicted?
Just like smoking and nicotine there no magic number/amount. It varies by individual but a normal dosage of pain killers taken as prescribed without some underlying condition is normally not addictive. That means only taken as much as needed and discontinuing as soon as possible when safer alternative is effective.
All these stories sadden and enrage me at the same time. I have a daughter that's going to attend Rutgers next year and I must be honest with you guys I'm scared. I do a lot of praying at night that the good lord steers her away from bad characters. It's just tough when they reach an age where they think they have it all figured out.
I mean the Mexican cartels. They drive the the exponential growth although it doesn't get the ink it should
“Mexican organizations are now the most prominent wholesale-level heroin traffickers in the DEA Chicago, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC FD AOR [field division area of responsibility], and have greatly expanded their presence in the New York City area."
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-heroin-coming-from-mexican-cartels
NIDA and NIMH have done some great work on researching evidenced based treatments. 12 step programs are a component what they've found to be effective.
In 2000, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health care Organizations (JCAHO) mandated adoption of policies for pain education, screening, follow-up, and uniform measurement, as well as for assuring implementation, for every hospital and JCAHO regulated outpatient facility.
If you were to go to any medical facility, what is the first question they ask you? What is your pain on a scale of 0-10? It doesn't matter if it is an ER, GP, dentist, or physical therapist. There is such an emphasis on pain management, the quickest and easiest thing to do was write a prescription.
About 10 years ago, I went to the ER on 3 consecutive days for a kidney stone. On 3 consecutive days I walked out with a prescription for pain medication, each one being stronger than the previous. Each one was filled at the same pharmacy. No questions asked. No red flags.
I've heard so many stories of people turning to heroin after starting with pain pills.
If you were to go to any medical facility, what is the first question they ask you? What is your pain on a scale of 0-10? It doesn't matter if it is an ER, GP, dentist, or physical therapist. There is such an emphasis on pain management, the quickest and easiest thing to do was write a prescription.
About 10 years ago, I went to the ER on 3 consecutive days for a kidney stone. On 3 consecutive days I walked out with a prescription for pain medication, each one being stronger than the previous. Each one was filled at the same pharmacy. No questions asked. No red flags.
I've heard so many stories of people turning to heroin after starting with pain pills.
You know a doctor that prescribed xanax for pain? That's new on me. I believe xanax is for anxiety. It is probably the cheapest medication I take and has virtually no effect other than relax the tension in my neck. Although I must admit that during my first colonoscopy I was on a xanax drip and I would have returned for the same treatment the next day, if the same nurse were there.
Did you take any opioids during the above procedures? If yes I would consider myself lucky if I were you. The wrong brain chemistry and you may have fallen down the rabbit-hole. I have tried cocaine once and took 2 percocet for extracted wisdom teeth (didn't really need them but wanted to see the effect). Neither incident led me to try again, thankfully, because I already had enough bad vices.
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I have a friend that is a realtor. She tells me the first people at any open house are there to raid the medicine cabinets. Sometimes there are multiple people waiting. They say hello and bolt straight for the bathroom medicine cabinets. They go from open house to open house every weekend. She works mostly in Summit and Chatham and says people come from all over to get the drugs.
It's partially on the parents, partially on doctors, but mostly on America's policy on drugs. Need to invest way more on treatment and prevention education. Throwing users in jail is moronic. The war on drugs is completely backwards.
The scariest part of this for me is that it starts off "harmless". "Take this pill I took from my dad's room. It's no big deal he takes it for his knee". Well if it's prescription how bad can it be? Few months later same normal kids who took a pill in the basement are shooting up. These same kids would have watched a movie at school about heroin and thought who the hell is dumb enough to do that stuff?
Wow, would've never guessed this...Speaks to the level of desperation once addiction sets in.
I've been working as a paramedic for the last 25+ years, and I can absolutely tell you it's a bigger problem today then years ago. The heroin is stronger today, it is cut with not only other opiates like Fentanyl, but even with cardiac drugs, and who knows what else. It takes more Narcan to wake people up these days, and then they sometimes go apeshit because of whatever else they're on, and that includes people already on Methadone to try and kick their habit. It's rich people, poor people, young, old, professionals, classic junkies, and everything in between.
I recently brought a heroin OD to a local hospital, and within 15 minutes after we arrived, 3 more arrived, from the same town, to an ER that was already overcrowded. Someone obviously was sellin' some god stuff that night in that town.
Also, a growing trend in hospital emergency rooms is to not prescribe opiates at all for pain, and use alternatives instead. Some people who would have otherwise not tried heroin are absolutely doing it because they can no longer get Oxy or whatever they got hooked on.
It's a huge problem in this country, and it's getting worse. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know this - we are not winning the war on drugs.
I recently brought a heroin OD to a local hospital, and within 15 minutes after we arrived, 3 more arrived, from the same town, to an ER that was already overcrowded. Someone obviously was sellin' some god stuff that night in that town.
Also, a growing trend in hospital emergency rooms is to not prescribe opiates at all for pain, and use alternatives instead. Some people who would have otherwise not tried heroin are absolutely doing it because they can no longer get Oxy or whatever they got hooked on.
It's a huge problem in this country, and it's getting worse. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know this - we are not winning the war on drugs.
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About 16 years ago I had a couple teeth extracted within a few months of each other. After the first one they gave me a prescription of 12 Vicodin pills. I took one when I got home, but didn't need the rest nor need any pills at all after the second extraction. I flushed the pills. I absolutely had no idea what an opioid was.
Back then and even today I rarely ever take any pain reducer / killer medicine, not even Tylenol.
I consider myself to be pretty lucky to have a relatively high pain threshold.
Back then and even today I rarely ever take any pain reducer / killer medicine, not even Tylenol.
I consider myself to be pretty lucky to have a relatively high pain threshold.
Regarding methadone treatment, I have a friend of mine who is a physician and works at a health center in the inner city. She told me if a person makes the comittment to start methadone treatment, that person needs to be on methadone for at least 5 years just to reprogram the receptors in the brain. That only addresses the physical dependence on the drug, it does not touch the psychological portion of it, which is a whole different animal.
End story, recovery from opiate addiction is a very long road.
End story, recovery from opiate addiction is a very long road.
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The pharma industry doesn't sell directly to patients for self medication. Take a good hard look at physicians and the Rxs they write. Also, hydro and oxy have been generic for decades, so no pharma company has promoted such drugs for a long, long, long time.
I broke my little toe a few years ago and went to an urgent care facility. Nice, clean break, just had to buddy tape it and let it be. They asked me about pain and I said it wasn't bad at all. They still gave me an Rx for 15 percs! Not even vicodin, straight to percs/oxy.
My colonoscopies have been painless. I fell asleep and then it was over. It's the prep that makes you want to kill yourself. I am sorry you suffered so much anxiety anticipating a procedure that's really very easy for the patient.
I am a physician who practices addiction medicine..privately and in a large clinic atmosphere in Perth Amboy. It's good to see a lot of interest on this board. Lot of misinformation unfortunately. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions. Few random thoughts..,Most of the nam vets who used heroin in Vietnam did not come back and use heroin after the war...Nearly half of opiate addicts have personality disorders. Unfortunately most of my opiate patients have a more difficult time with stopping the cocaine. The stories you hear of the normal developmentally functioning teen getting hooked after a routine Ortho or dental procedure is the vast minority
But these stories get a lot of attention since they scare so many parents.
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