Heroin, a Social Epidemic by Moore

Imagine living a life where you can escape any time you want. You just take a little bump and get that unexplained pleasurable sensation within seconds. That warm fuzzy feeling where your body goes numb, you don’t have to feel or worry about life, you feel limitless with your thoughts, it’s a sensation that takes over every aspect of your mind and body. Now, imagine that feeling followed by severe nausea, vomiting, the most absurd intense sensation to itch your entire body. This is the feeling that 948,000 Americans have felt (“Substance Abuse Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality”). This is what Heroin is said to feel like. A drug that was originally prescribed to patients to help with addiction to morphine is now the number one drug overdose killer in the U.S. With numbers skyrocketing like never before, heroin is and has been a social epidemic since the early ’90s, but why? Why has it not been taken control of and what is the best approach to do so?

This heroin epidemic starts well before 1898, but during this time it became commercialized. A German drug company, Bayer, released heroin to their pharmaceutical company as a non-addictive drug to help with the addictive-ness of morphine. They coined the drug’s name based on the German word “heroisch” meaning “heroic, strong” (Edwards). As people began to realize that heroin was addictive, it was too late. More than six closely related drugs were produced and being sold to satisfy the massive need for heroin, such as hydromorphone and dihydromorphine. During this time, diamorphine (another name for heroin) was being prescribed as a cough suppressant "In the cough of phthisis minute doses [of morphine] are of service, but in this particular disease morphine is frequently better replaced by codeine or by heroin, which checks irritable coughs without the narcotism following upon the administration of morphine” (Recreational Drug - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics). It wasn’t until 1924 when the health committee decided to ban heroin, and all related drugs because it was found there were no therapeutic advantages over drugs already being used (Heroin, Drugs / Substance Abuse).

Over the years, many people have been told endless amounts of horror stories behind using heroin but don’t understand exactly what it is, where it’s made or how it’s made. For starters, heroin is made from morphine, which is a natural substance taken from the seed pods of poppy seed plants. These plants can grow all around the world, a majority are grown in warmer climates such as Southeast and Southwest Asia, Mexico and Colombia. The first step is to remove the sap from the pod and purify it to make a base of Morphine. Then, the base is mixed, boiled and separated numerous times using a vast array of chemicals. Some of these chemicals alone can be harmful to a person’s body if cross-contaminated with the wrong chemical it can cause major explosions. 

Like many other pharmaceutical drugs, heroin is made in a lab by professional chemists and sometimes not-so-professional chemists. Black market heroin is a huge risk because many times drug dealers cut the other ingredients in with heroin to make a bigger profit on a smaller amount. For example, Fentanyl is often used as an additive. Fentanyl is a man-made drug with a 50% higher potency than heroin (Synthetic Opioid Overdose Data | Drug Overdose | Injury Center). It has the same consistency as heroin and has no smell. Unknowingly snorting this can lead to a dangerous overdose. 

Heroin usage has a massive effect on the world with problems such as homelessness, unemployment HIV, and hepatitis B and C. In March of 2017, The National Institute of Drug Abuse did a study in the US to see where the highest use and the death highest rates of heroin users were. “West Virginia came in first place with a count of 49 opioid-involved overdoses per 100,000 persons”. In 2017 West Virginia had a total of “833 deaths involving opioid overdoses”, in 2009 this number was only at 150” (West Virginia Opioid Summary).

 Another worldwide problem involving heroin use is the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis viruses. Both of these viruses are spread through either blood and/or other body fluids. Because heroin is a mind-altering drug, a person in this state of mind has a much higher risk of contracting HIV. From being careless as to where needles come from to not being in a conscious state of mind knowing whether or not it is ok to have unprotected sex with your partner. This is true for both men and women. According to the National Institute of Drug Use, “one in 10 HIV diagnoses occur among people who inject drugs” (Drug Use and Viral Infections (HIV, Hepatitis). As unfortunate as it is, women who contract HIV can pass it to their baby during childbirth and after through breast milk.  

Heroin use is usually talked about on a big scale, but it can lead to several problems for small communities and neighborhoods. Communities that have high heroin and/or drug use start to have a domino effect within that community. Heroin and drug use within communities and neighborhoods normally have a higher crime rate and more violence. In turn, this leads to many families not wanting to move into the said community because who wants to raise kids where people are selling heroin down the street. With this, businesses start to feel the effects. Not making enough money to make ends meet or having been robbed numerous times and being forced to move in fear of their safety. 

Communities and neighborhoods that have a higher crime rate often have a higher homelessness rate. Again, who wants to raise a child with a homeless person sleeping down the street from you? Heroin users need to get their fix by any means necessary. Stealing from family, not paying rent, and not eating becomes a normal lifestyle for many heroin users. Being in the constant state of this mind-altering drug helps a person not feel the pain that comes with the lives they are ruining or people they hurt along the way. It becomes a mechanism to cope with the wrongdoings of their lives.

Lives of Substance is an organization that has two main goals: first to support people who have/ had addiction problem second is to inform the public about addiction with personal stories from people with addiction. They do many interviews with people during their drug use days. Josie, who was 38, at the time talks about her heroin use:

I didn’t like the group home and at that stage, I didn’t know anywhere else to go […Being homeless] was so new to me, you know. You’d grab a blanket and a pillow and just crash underneath a tree [and] you’d just [take speed] anywhere.…

my first taste of heroin, it was like this peace coming through your body [from] head to toe. […] It’s peaceful and another getaway, and [I was] able to sleep. Like [it helped me] block out my thoughts and […] deal with every abuse at home. And so, for me, that just made things easier.

Josie says she found it hard to cope as a single mother with little support. After the baby was born, she resumed taking heroin. When her child was about two, she had a second child who also born prematurely but did not survive. During the pregnancy, Josie had stopped taking heroin but when she lost her second child, she says ‘everything […] came crashing down’ and she resumed taking it. A few years later, she had another child. (Lives of Substances)

To this day, Josie still uses heroin with no end in sight.

With the technology and resources today, we should be way ahead of an epidemic like this, but unfortunately, we are still way behind. German Lopez says it best “the primary problem with opioid addiction is simple: it’s easier to get high than it is to get help” (Lopez). Everyone seems to have a solution for epidemics like this but only few seem to put it into action. One country has come up with a solution and is in the process of testing it out. Canada has had a national program of legalized medical cannabis since 2014, and it might be a way to help the opioid addiction.

According to an article by The Conversation, “Drug overdoses are the leading cause of deaths and still twenty million prescriptions are filled each year in Canada.” “Almost one in five Canadians live with chronic pain”. (Milloy). In 2014 researchers from across the United States and Canada concluded their data over a 10-year study. They found the states that legalized medical cannabis had twenty-five percent fewer opioid related deaths (Milloy). It may not fix the heroin/opioid epidemic but it might offset it.  

           The US is also making attempts to solve this epidemic, using big and small-scale resources, “The Trump Administration had secured $6 billion in new funding over a two-year window to fight opioid abuse. In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency and devised a three-part plan to tackling this:

Part 1 is reducing demand and over-prescription, including educating Americans about the dangers of opioid misuse. Part 2 is cutting down on the supply of illicit drugs by cracking down on the international and domestic drug supply chains that devastate American communities. Part 3 is helping those struggling with addiction through evidence-based treatment and recovery support services.     (“The White House”)

             The Federal Government is improving access to addiction treatment and recovery services across all fifty states. States are enhancing the use of prescription guidelines based on the best available science. Health care providers are using state-based PDMP’s (perception monitoring programs) which help identify patients at risk of addiction or overdose and the safest thing you can do as an individual is consider non opioid options for pain management (“Opioid Prescribing”).

Albert Camus believed the world should be without restrictions. He believed there was no reason for epidemics because there shouldn’t be order, rules or guide lines to live by. Life is meaningless and you should embrace the meaninglessness. Albert Camus was an atheist and an anarchist. He believed you shouldn’t live your life serving any one person and there is room to be rebellious. Albert Camus would be empathetic towards the vast amount of people who lost their lives dew to opioid overdose. He would have been saddened by the time it takes away from living life and enjoying life. On the other hand, he would want all drugs to be legal and embrace the freedom that comes with being able to do heroin without going jail for it. This may sound strange, but there shouldn’t be a reason for something to be illegal; you should have the freedom to do what you please. Therefore, there should be an epidemic about it.

            People are dying and suffering from something that was originally created and falsely advertised by doctors. Heroin has been and still is the number one overdose killer in the U.S. Why, if it’s killed so many people and has had such a detrimental effect on people’s lives, are we still having to deal with it today? Why is it still being made in labs and prescribed to patients? Why have we put forth so much money and still haven’t come to a solution? Is it absurd to have a heroin epidemic in 2018?

Works Cited

CDC. “Opioid Prescribing.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26 Sept. 2017.

“Consumption in Everyday Life.” Lives of Substance, Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute, 2016.

"Drug Use and Viral Infections (HIV, Hepatitis)." National Institute on Drug Abuse, 29 Jul. 2019.

Edwards, Jim. “Yes, Bayer Promoted Heroin for Children -- Here Are the Ads That Prove It.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 17 Nov. 2011.

 “Heroin (Drugs / Substance Abuse).” UrbanAreas.net

Lopez, German. “How to Stop the Deadliest Drug Overdose Crisis in American History.” Vox, Vox, Aug. 2017

M-J Milloy, and Stephanie Lake. “Now That Cannabis Is Legal, Let’s Use It to Tackle the Opioid Crisis.” The Conversation, 16 Oct. 2018.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. “West Virginia Opioid Summary.” NIDA, 29 Mar. 2019.

“Recreational Drug - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics”, Recreational Drug. Elsevier B.V, 2019.

“Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Detailed Tables”. Substance Abuse Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. SAMHSA. Published September 7, 2017.

“Synthetic Opioid Overdose Data | Drug Overdose | (CDC) Injury Center.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 Aug. 2019.

“The White House.” The White House, The White House, 2017, www.whitehouse.gov/opioids/.