Why on God’s Green Earth would someone try heroin? Knowing how deadly and extremely addictive it is why would someone even try it? It scares the heck out of me that it is making another rise among our nation’s youth!
Heroin use among teenagers is increasing at an alarming rate. Long considered to be prevalent only in urban areas, is infiltrating the suburbs. All across suburban America, young people are getting hooked on a drug parents never suspected they needed to fear.
National data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that the number of teens dying from heroin abuse has skyrocketed. In 1999, 198 people between the ages of 15 and 24 died of a heroin overdose, compared to 510 deaths in 2009, the latest year data was taken. This according to the NY Daily News.
More teens are seeking treatment for heroin abuse, too — the figure jumped from 4,414 to more than 21,000 (about 80 percent) between 1999 and 2009. Ninety percent of teen heroin addicts are white.
Is prescription medication to blame. Some experts believe prescription painkillers are the link between suburban teens and heroin. Teens addicted to pills like Oxycodone can find the same high in heroin, which is cheaper, more intense and easier to buy.
Death from prescription drugs tripled between 2000 and 2008, according to national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a recent report, former heroin addicts, nearly all reported getting hooked the same way. They started with prescription drugs they purchased from friends, and when they became too addicted to afford the number of pills they needed to get high, they switched to cheaper heroin.
This is insanity. We must implement mandatory drug classes for our youth beginning in middle school and continue to push the curriculum as part of the public education.
