We're Really Starting to Panic About Heroin in America

[unrepentant progress]

After the session, I couldn’t help walking up to Collier and challenging his shtick. Prefacing my remarks with, “And this is not meant as a slight, but…” I asked why he, rather than, say, a public-health professional or an academic, was best qualified to speak on this issue. If heroin addiction is principally thought to be a “health” problem, then depicting it through the lens of law enforcement interdiction efforts seems ill-advised. Collier responded by characterizing himself as “a guy that understands the prevention side, the treatment side, and the law enforcement side. What I’m doing is collaboration, and I’m not afraid to take the lead. Because that was my expertise in DEA.” Now he works with the New Jersey Attorney General’s office as a “law enforcement liaison” for public-outreach projects.

None of this is to discount the mounting anecdotal evidence of social problems stemming from heroin abuse, or any one individual’s lived experiences. But the statistics suggest that proclamations of an "epidemic" suddenly gripping the nation might be overblown. Use of the drug could well be increasing in prevalence in certain areas, but it is just as much worth bearing in mind that federal government data says 0.3 percent of Americans aged 12 and older used heroin in 2012, an increase of 0.1 percent since 2002. Now, an increase of a tenth of a percent might be worth examining, but that it should necessarily be reason to declare an “epidemic”—with all the term’s attendant hysterics—seems dubious. There is also the potential that a spike in heroin use could be mainly attributable to people switching over from prescription opioids, meaning overall use of opioids may not have increased much, if at all.

I would even concede that certain public-policy actions in response to recent trends in heroin use may well be reasonable. But deploying additional law enforcement resources to interdict the drug and arrest nonviolent offenders would not seem to be among them, and neither would be stoking needless frenzy in the populace. A better first step would probably be to exclaim together, once and for all: “Wow, drug prohibition is continuing to fail dramatically, and we should really attempt something else.”

More: http://www.vice.com/read/america-is-really-freaking-out-about-heroin-use-now

[wercal]

1. Fifty percent increase

That 0.1 percent increase from 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent of the population really means use went up fifty percent in 9 years.

The heroin problem is genuine, and destroying lives.

[unrepentant progress]

3. I've no doubt that some people suffer from heroin addiction -- about 200,000 people annually

However, we're talking about 1-year use rates here -- people trying heroin -- and a 50% increase of a very small number is still a very small number. In other words, don't be an idiot.

[wercal]

7. I think you just called me an idiot

Something tells me that

A. You wouldn't be nearly as abrassive in a situation that didn't give you anonimity.

B. You don't understand statistics and the implications of using a 12-up dataset vs a dataset compressed to the age group where the use rate is actually climbing.

C. You are one of the haughty know it alls who wander this earth, who frankly don't know what they don't know, and stumble through life trying to amass self esteem by name calling.

Btw....are you really calling me an idiot, based on a statistic, born from self reported used....from a heroin user?

Gee genius, why don't you explain to me the discrepancy between growth in heroin related deaths and arrests vs use numbers. Ohh....heroin addicts lie about shit.

Keep being an idiot. You're programmed that way.

[concreteblue]

2. Panic about prescription drug use

is causing the rise in Heroin od's. Here in KY the Legislature passed laws making it harder for Dr.s to prescribe pain medication, and patients with long-term chronic pain are being forced into the street market. Heroin is MUCH cheaper on the street due to these laws as well. More money for education and treatment, along with de-escalating the rhetoric about the evils of prescription narcotics would be much more effective policy, IMHO.

[unrepentant progress]

4. It's too early to know the knock-on effects of laws like Indiana and Kentucky passed

The stats just aren't in yet, although I suspect you'll be proven right.

If you look at the disaggregated statistics from the National Drug Use Survey, what you see is that while the author is correct that it's 0.3 percent 1-year use rate for 12 and over, it's a 0.8 percent 1-year use rate for 18-25 year olds, after which it falls back to 0.2 percent. So what the stats are showing is that more young adults are [em]trying[/em] heroin. However the year-to-year changes are not statistically significant. And of course, whether or not a survey is a reliable method for measuring drug use is a whole other problematic question.

Stats here: http://www.drugabuse.gov/national-survey-drug-use-health

[bemildred]

5. Legalize it, and regulate it, and provide treatment for those willing.

And a lot of the trouble will go away, and it will cost much less than the DEA.

[unrepentant progress]

6. Ayup

Not to mention a lot fewer lives ruined by the criminal justice system.

[kristopher]

8. I suspect the recent focus has more to do with halting that emerging policy than ...

...it does concern about the effect on people's lives of drug addiction. The writing is on the wall re marijuana legalization and law enforcement is panicked about funding.

[bemildred]

9. True, new evildoers must be found, and lots of them, and soon. nt