Many people try Heroin for the first time thinking “I’ll
just do it this one time. I can stop whenever I want to.” Consider the words of
Hannah, an 18-year-old addict: “I came home drunk and on Xanax, got kicked out
of the house, and moved in with a heroin addict I had just met. And that was
the beginning to a never ending cycle of destruction”(Bluff 1). Even one dose
of heroin can be the beginning on the road to addiction. According to the
National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 948,000 Americans reported using
heroin in the past year (What is NSDUH?).
The number has been in serious growth since 2007. Heroin addiction is a
serious scourge and should be tackled immediately because it could possibly be
you, or your loved one affected next. What can America do to stop this horrible
epidemic?
History
The misuse of the drug heroin has
been occurring for hundreds of years, although during earlier times it was used
for medicinal purposes also. Heroin is derived from morphine, an analgesic and
recreational drug which is purified from the flower opium poppy. Opium was the
first opioid to exist- and it was used by Egyptians and Romans, eventually
expanding to Europe and China, if you were on the silk road to Asia then you
would most likely find opium. The growth and use of this drug dates back to
around 3400-- during the 19th century physicians used the drug as a therapeutic
agent for a series of purposes, including childbirth, menstruation, and
surgical procedures (Rosenblum). When used in the 1800s, morphine was known as
one of the most powerful pain killing drugs known to mankind. It was not until
the end of the 1800s that some medical professionals took notice to the
addictive quality of opium.
The Bayer Company started the
production of heroin in 1898 on a commercial scale (Hosztafi 1). At the
beginning, the results were so strong that heroin was considered a wonder drug.
Heroin showed more effectiveness than codeine had ever. Although, the repeated
distribution of the drug became unhealthy for patients- they were soon addicted
to heroin; “In the 1910s, the euphoric effects of heroin which caused the
enhanced consumption of the drug” (Hosztafi). Heroin was transformed into a
narcotic drug, and its abuse began to spread quickly. Street names for heroin
came about due to the importance to hide the sales and trade of the drug from
local law enforcement. Dope, White Nurse, Junk, and Smack are just a few of the many- Although the users and dealers
of the drug tend to swap out the names regularly, it is important to know the
names because it could give insight as to what may be mixed within the drug.
Though the sole production of heroin is not made in the United States, it is
still supplied in great quantities. Mexico is the primary supplier for meth,
cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Also, heroin is gaining entrance into America
through Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, and Colombia.
Social
Effect
Although heroins impact may directly
affect when you or a loved one is using it, it also has a negative effect on
society. Heroin use has been steadily increasing among Texans in their teens
and 20s according to a study through (The University of Texas at Austin). Also,
The U.S. Sentencing Commission cites the Federal Western District of Texas as
having had the fourth highest number of heroin trafficking offenders in fiscal
year 2012 out of all the federal court districts: “In 2016, there were 1,375
opioid-related overdose deaths in Texas—a rate of 4.9 deaths per 100,000
persons compared to the national rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000 persons. Since
2010, the number of heroin-related deaths steadily increased from 260 to 530
deaths, and deaths attributed to synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl) rose from
156 to 250” (NIH). The epidemic is in serious growth in the states which has
caused the nation as a whole to suffer. The heroin epidemic cost the American
society more than $51 billion in 2015 (Jiang). Which means that American
taxpayers are paying to support a drug sickness- when taxpayers could be
spending their money on something more important. With this number, it has only
began to increase. As mentioned above, heroin is not being produced in the
United States, which means the United States economy is paying a tremendous
amount of money to get it imported. Furthermore, heroin users are not
performing in society as the average American does-- due to being incarcerated,
enrolled in rehabilitation centers, early death, and unemployment. Heroin use,
mainly through injection causes a plethora of chronic diseases-- Tuberculosis, Hepatitis
B, Hepatitis C, and HIV-AIDS. The cost of treatments for these diseases are
significant to the epidemic.
Examples
One should consider the short and
long-term psychological effects of heroin. When a person uses heroin, it
quickly travels to their brain where it connects with the opioid receptors, and
triggers a flood of neurotransmitters, which are responsible for making the
user feel the euphoric effects of the drug, this is the similar effect of most
opioid drugs. After you’ve become dependent on Heroin, going without it can
devastating. Past and current users have experienced
either one or more of the following: ”Emptiness and
despair”, inability to sleep, anxiety, panic, feeling of dread, fatigue, and
sexual dysfunction- similar to the stories of the two following people.
31 year-old Sarah Clay met her
husband, Justin in, 2007 while they were working together at a factory, “We hit
it off pretty quickly. We moved in and I was pregnant within four months,”
according to Sarah. Sarah and Justin were living their what they imagined a
happy life, until they feel deep in opioid addiction. The road for Sarah was
bumpy- and after finally being able to get clean, Sarah received the
devastating news that Justin had passed away.
In the middle of their battle with heroin, Justin received
the news that he had cancer. Justin had lost all his motivation; once in the
middle of an overdose he told Sarah to not call for help next time.
As mentioned above, using a drug can
also affect the people around you. Kathy, Justin's mother was the one who had
to care for the children during Sarah and Justin's episodes with the drug. Kathy: “The kids would report that they had
not eaten, or that they had to fix their own meals while the parents were
resting. And that was unusual because I know, Sarah, you were an excellent cook
and that you would fix meals on a daily basis. So, that was concerning.
How can you explain the overwhelming power to allow drugs to
supercede the care of your children” (Mador). Addiction is hard on the family
of the users because they aren't able to numb the pain as the user is.
The DSM-5 helps clinicians to
specify the severity and how much of a problem the substance use disorder is.
Two or three symptoms indicate a mild substance use disorder— four or five
symptoms indicate a moderate substance use disorder.Taking the substance in
larger amounts or for longer than you’re meant to. “Wanting to cut down or stop
using the substance but not managing to ,Cravings and urges to use the
substance, Not being able function as you would regularly at work, school, or
home due to substance use” (ASA 234). Sine the American Psychiatric Association
is a credible source for the topic of mental health, the symptoms seen above
have been seen in many patients said to have a substance addiction.
The most important
solution to America’s opioid
epidemic is not unknown: vital expansion of facilities that treat
addictions. Olga Khazan provided information as to what France's response was
the their heroin epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s. The solution was to
drastically expand access to the anti-addiction medication buprenorphine, a
drug that reduces cravings and withdrawal for a person with an opioid
addiction:
In 1995, France made it so any doctor could
prescribe buprenorphine without any special licensing or training.
Buprenorphine, a first-line treatment for opioid addiction, is a medication
that reduces cravings for opioids without becoming addictive itself. Suddenly,
about 10 times as many addicted patients began receiving medication-assisted
treatment, Within four years, overdose deaths had declined by 79 percent.
(Lopez 1)
Though
everyone can't be helped, the results shown after just a few years of using the
drug proved to be substantial to the problem of heroin in the country. As
America is the most powerful country in the world, this should not be hard to
access. Though the change would only come if the people in power decided it was
time for a change. When diagnosing
substance abuse disorders and mental problems-Psychologists use nature and
nurture to help understand the patients conflict. The concept of nature states that about half of a person's
susceptibility to addiction can be linked to their genes. Genes are passed down
to offspring and they determine all sorts of factors. These can be altered, but
they can’t be changed through therapy. For nurture As life goes on people
experience events that can change the way they think about their bodies, minds,
and their whole point of view of the world. So as people continue throughout
life, they tend to develop habits that could be good or bad for the nurture
side. These two factors are two major solutions as well as problems for someone
who is battling with an addiction. As stated before everyone can't be reached
and addictions cannot be avoided by some people, it's a matter of if we try to
crack down on the problem or not.
Camus and
Absurdity
Camus conveys that the most noble
thing a person can do is exist in defiance of the absurd world surrounding us.
So fleeing the absurdity is to be a form of escape from the pervasive anxiety
of living in the absurd. In The Fall, the
narrator lives a life where he hopes to be from judgement and socially
accepted. However, he is not always successful in this way, where he lets a
patient commit suicide without stepping in to resolve the issue:
Every
night I would strut at the bar, in the red light and dust of that earthly
paradise, lying fantastically and drinking at length. I would wait for dawn and
at last end up in the always unmade bed of my princess, who would indulge
mechanically in sex and then sleep without transition. Day would come softly to
throw light on this disaster and I would get up and stand motionless in a dawn
of glory. (Camus 103)
The
excerpt above is meant to present the belief that the usage of drugs, alcohol,
and unsafe sexual practices are a form of escaping living in the absurd.Intent
and effect of drug usage seems to be the deciding factor- is it a means to
escape the absurd, or to dive into it more deeply, or to rebel against it?
Camus would not be against using drugs every once in a while if that meant that
something worthwhile was going to happen.
Conclusion
The use of drugs has proved to be deadly
to all that use them only for recreational purposes. As the economy continues
to grow, the use of heroin becomes more popular. Viewing them from a unified perspective is essential to
improving public health. To address the problem it requires attention from all
sectors of society. If the epidemic continues, the problem will get way out the
scope to where we could handle it. Right now most people don't contain the
worry of them or a loved one being affected by the drug, but soon someone that
everyone knows will become affected.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Fall. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.
“Federal and State
Heroin Crimes in Texas | Tritico Rainey, PLLC | Houston, Texas.” Tritico
Rainey, PLLC, www.triticorainey.com/Articles/Federal-and-state-heroin-crimes-in-Texas.shtml.
“Heroin Overview:
Origin and History.” Edited by The University of Arizona, Treatment Settings : Treatment Settings | Methoide,
methoide.fcm.arizona.edu/infocenter/index.cfm?stid=174.
Hosztafi, S. “[The
History of Heroin].” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National
Library of Medicine, Aug. 2001, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11862675.
MacLaren, Erik.
“Heroin History and Statistics.” DrugAbuse.com,
4 Dec. 2018, drugabuse.com/heroin/history-statistics/.
Mador, Jess. “The
Beginning Of My Life: Family On The Journey From Heroin Addiction To Recovery.”
WYSO, 91.3 WYSO, 2 Oct. 2018,
National Institute on
Drug Abuse. “Texas Opioid Summary.” NIDA, 28 Feb. 2018, www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state/texas-opioid-summary.
National Institute on
Drug Abuse. “What Is the Scope of Heroin Use in the United States?” NIDA, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/heroin/scope-heroin-use-in-united-states
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