Keith Humphries notes that recent studies have discovered that people who die from overdoses of opioids, including heroin, don’t tend to have taken overly large doses or to have taken a “bad” batch that included impurities they may not have known about. The problem with opioids is mainly the opioids themselves.
Having noted this, however, I can’t say that I am particularly pleased to learn that my community now has to contend with a nasty batch of fentanyl-laced heroin.
Police said several additional search warrants that were executed after the arrests led to additional heroin seizures. According to Chester County District Attorney’s Office officials, the seizure was the first time that fentanyl-laced heroin was discovered in Chester County during the course of a criminal drug investigation. Fentanyl-laced heroin has been previously discovered in the county following drug overdoses, officials said.
Back in January, more than a dozen people died in Western Pennsylvania after taking fentanyl-laced heroin. So, it may not show up as a statistically significant problem, but it’s still a problem,. Apparently, fentanyl is currently the most widely used synthetic opioid. It’s much stronger than heroin or morphine, with the result that it increases the likelihood that users will simply stop breathing.
Yet, as Mr. Humphries says, the threat from any opioid is very high without adding anything stronger. If you have any opioids around the house, take them to your nearest police station or simply dispose of them on our own.
The opioid epidemic has now reached a level almost equal to the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s, with the same level of stigma attached.
Bob Geldof lost his wife and now his daughter.
Btw – don’t flush them.
The fish already have enough chemicals and hormones in them!
It is a shame so many are unhappy in their lives that they need drugs just to exist further. That is not really living it is just taking up space.
The reasons why people become addicted are far more complex than just being unhappy. There is an enormous amount of chemistry involved. “Happiness” has very little to do with addiction. Finding “happiness” is no cure in and of itself.
Of course I have opioids “around the house” (i.e., among my medications). It’s a legally prescribed medication that I and millions of other people use safely and responsibly, and it makes my quality of life possible. Statements like this are hugely irresponsible.
Without in any way wanting to minimize the seriousness of the current epidemic, both parts of this statement are highly offensive to those of us who survived that pandemic. Addictions ruin lives, and overdoses end them. AIDS in the 1980s was a slow, painful, sure death sentence that in the US mostly impacted a particular community defined by how they were born. I don’t see elected officials uniformly refusing to acknowledge, much less respond to, the crisis. I certainly don’t see large numbers of preachers and social reactionaries rejoicing over addicts’ deaths as God’s righteous judgment. I don’t see opioid substance abuse altering (and terrorizing) the lives of millions of people who’ve had no contact with addiction or abuse, not in the way that AIDS impacted the sex lives of every gay and bi male in the US and anyone who loved them.
It’s always easy to compare something happening now to something momentous that happened in the past. Memories and emotions fade over time. But AIDS really was that bad. Thirty years on, a whole generation of gay men in the US and elsewhere is still defined by having survived it. In Africa, of course, it was far worse for much longer. Please don’t trivialize all that.
CDC , June 2014::
In 1991, after Magic Johnson announced he had HIV and people started getting tested, the CDC got 45,000 referrals. That number is pretty consistent with recent years where about 50,000 new cases become known each year in this country.
Not all of the pharmaceutical cases are opioids and not all fatal overdoses are from pharma either, but you can see that the body count is getting close to what AIDS did here at its peak-lethality.
I understand that you think people aren’t denying this crisis like the Reagan administration did with AIDS. But I don’t think people are exactly talking freely about the heroin problems in their families or their school systems. But whole communities are getting decimated by this crisis. Some of our politicians are talking about it, particularly the governor of Vermont, but it’s not exactly in the news as much as AIDS was.
AIDS probably scared people more than it should have, although at-risk communities were justly terrified. The opioid crisis doesn’t scare people enough. There probably isn’t a parent in the country who ever expected their kid to get hooked on opioids and become a junkie. But there are probably over a million heroin users in the country, and many more addicted to prescription opioids.
Your kid is now more likely to get hooked on pills and die than he is to get in a car accident and die.
Thanks for this Geov. While I understand the urgency that Booman feels, and agree that the epidemic on the streets is very bad, and that opiods are over-prescribed, there are thousands of us who use them correctly or as recommended, to get through the day.
I have tremendous back pain issues. Opiods work. I hate taking them, and am always working on finding alternatives, either medication-wise or through core-strengthening exercises, etc.
I come here for Boo’s excellent writing and perspective. Whenever I happen to read one of his anti-opiod posts, his all or nothing approach causes me some stress. I understand the urgency he feels, and no one really disagrees about the problems on the street. However, for me, these posts are actually stressful and cause a lot of self-questioning. The day I feel I can get by without my carefully, only as prescribed use of opiods will be a happy one. If it ever comes.
For now though, I think I’ll start skipping any post about opiods on this site.