Heroin used to be highly popular in the 90’s when the drug made its way to the peak of pop culture, once movies as Trainspotting and Requiem for a dream received high critical acclaim. We have a little piece of history repeating here, as the US is now threatened by a new heroin epidemic.
The chairman of the House Judiciary committee is blaming the Obama administration for a heroin epidemic that has led to a dramatic increase in overdoses and deaths. Now, state officials embarked on a mission to investigate effective ways to stem the mounting drug crisis.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration lays focus on cutting the problem off at its source. The main cause of the new and extremely dangerous epidemic is the over-reliance on prescription drugs. “Focusing on the prescription drug problem is a top priority”, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy Center recently declared.
The real action that should be taken, according to Obama administration representatives, should include mandatory and ever going education for each and every opioid prescriber.
The administration is currently expanding training among federal health care providers who must meet education requirements. Efforts to a similar degree have been implemented at the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Defense.
According to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 86% of US citizens between ages of 12 and 49 who tried heroin for the first time in the last 6 years have previously used over-the-counter painkillers. On the other hand, 70% of people using prescription painkillers for non-medical use get them from their close ones, such as friends and family.
Looking over the matter, officials suggest that healthcare representatives should make use of better prescription drug monitoring programs, thus enabling the law enforcement to track whether a drug abuser is going from doctor to doctor, exactly as it happens in Traispotting, for prescriptions. Mark Renton used to be the expert addict and it seems that cinematography now entered the reality territory, with increasing numbers of individuals finding ways to feed their heroin addiction.
Since 2008, there has been a 232% increase in heroin seizures along the US Southwest border. No less than half of the heroin that can now be found in the US comes from Mexican cartels. This highlights the genious strategy and efficiency of the cartel, managing to enter and break through the free markets that are now threatened by the heroin epidemic.
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