DEA report: Heroin use growing faster than any other illicit drug; overdose deaths highest in a decade
http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150522/NEWS/150529638
Nationally, the number of deaths involving heroin more than tripled to 8,260 overdose deaths in 2013, from 2,402 deaths in 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The National Heroin Threat Assessment released Friday by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrations shows heroin use and availability are on the rise, with more heroin-related deaths than at any time in the last decade.
Nationally, the number of deaths involving heroin more than tripled to 8,260 overdose deaths in 2013, from 2,402 deaths in 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the same period, the population of heroin users nearly doubled, to 289,000, in 2013, from 161,000 in 2007, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
In Rhode Island, overdose deaths have grown by more than 73 percent during the last five years, to 239 deaths in 2014, according to the state health department. The number of overdose deaths involving heroin were not available.
Although fewer people presently use heroin than other illicit drugs, the heroin user population is growing at a faster rate than any other drug of abuse, the DEA said in a statement.
The higher demand for heroin is partly driven by an increase in controlled prescription drug-abuse over the past decade. A recent SAMHSA study found that four out of five recent new heroin users had previously abused prescription pain relievers. Heroin is now higher in purity, less expensive, and often easier to obtain than illegal prescription painkillers and is of a higher purity, so it can be smoked or snorted, thereby avoiding the stigma associated with injection, the DEA statement said. Heroin users today tend to be younger, more affluent, and more ethnically and geographically diverse than ever before.
“DEA is targeting the cartels that produce and smuggle heroin into the U.S. and organized criminals that distribute this poison,” DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said. “We will continue to combat heroin trafficking to protect Americans from this severe and growing threat.”
The NHTA is based, in part, on survey responses from more than 1,100 law enforcement agencies, which were asked to identify the greatest drug threat in their areas. The majority indicated heroin as the primary drug threat.
The percentage of agencies reporting heroin as their greatest concern has steadily increased from 8 percent in 2007 to 38 percent in 2015. Heroin seizures nationwide rose 81 percent from 2010 through 2014, according to data from the the National Seizure System. During that same period, the average size of a heroin seizure more than doubled, to 1.74 kilograms.
Filed under: General Problems
How many people know that heroin is metabolized as morphine ? But yet it is not used as a painkiller .. our government is just ridiculous
How many people know that Codiene is metabolized into Morphine
Hydrocodone is metabolized into Dilaudid ( Hydromorphone)
Oxycodone is metabolized into Oxymorphone (Opana)
Demerol is metabolized into toxic metabolites
Pharmaceutical grade Heroin is abt 2-3 times more potent than Morphine on a mg to mg basis
I knew that.
Because YOU taught me.
Keep teaching Steve
Who didn’t see this coming when they stopped treating pain patients appropriately. The prior addicts who switched to prescription Opiates went back to Heroin when prescriptions were harder to get. But how many legitimate, suffering patients have now turned to Heroin out of desperation when the medical system failed them. Both scenarios are tragic and, IMHO, caused by the useless DEA.
[…] https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=10515 […]
It is not more pure or cheaper. Where do they get stats? Oh I know, up Thiers! Hate disinfo. US wants junkies to imprison and also kill off disabled pain patients.
Heroin exports have quadrupled since the US has been in Afghanistan. There is definitive truth that our troops Protect and enable Afghan warlords, poppy growers. It should be decrimi alized and given to addicts medically for crime reduction, and enables the individual to have a productive life.
Agreed, Sky!! Though I fear we are in the minority.
Explains why they’re targeting doctors and pharmacist now. They can’t catch the real drug dealers so they are going after the ones that advertise in the Yellow pages. Just maybe when they fired the Director of the DEA the should have kept firing.