The Changing Face of Heroin Use; Is It Really Changing

[erpowers]

With the death of Glee Star Cory Monteith some in the media have taken up the meme that the face of Heroin use is changing. The story goes, in the past, Heroin use was mainly an urban issue, but now it is becoming a problem for upper income suburban youth. When I saw this, my thought was is the face of Heroin use really changing, or do the Cory Monteiths of the world force us to acknowledge that drug use is not just an urban/black/low income issue.

In a documentary about drugs, Van Jones, a former Obama Administration official said the first time he saw rampant drug use was at an Ivy League college. In addition, it seems that when one looks at the statistics they find that white kids are at least just as likely to use drugs as black kids and white kids do not have to go to black people and black neighborhoods to get drugs. White kids can and do get drugs from white kids in white neighborhoods.

So, it seems the face of Heroin use may not be changing. It may be that at times we are forced to see that the face of Heroin and drug use includes upper income suburban white kids. So, what do others think?

http://t.nbcnews.com/health/glee-stars-od-shows-new-fresh-face-heroin-6C10658371

[ZombieHorde]

1. I used to shoot herion in Montana.

The folks I did it with dressed really nice, had jobs, and seemed just like everyone else. The heroin scenes I see in the media don't reflect my experiences at all.

[nomorenomore08]

12. Funny, I used to shoot up in Oakland squat houses with homeless gutter punks.

So I guess everybody's story is different...

[ZombieHorde]

13. Yeah.

I don't it has very much to do with the drugs.

[nomorenomore08]

14. I guess some people are able to be pretty functional on the stuff.

But I don't doubt that their lives still more or less revolve around heroin. It's just that kind of drug.

[NoOneMan]

2. I think a lot more upper & middleclass kids will be getting into heroin now

A lot of this has to do with their easy access to prescribed opiates (the real gateway drugs). Once they get hooks on this stuff, its not an easy path out

[WhollyHeretic]

3. I was in high school in the 90's in a affluent suburb and saw a lot of lives destroyed by heroin

My best friend died from it.

[Cal Carpenter]

4. 'They' have been saying that for decades

that these dangerous urban influences are corrupting our innocent suburban kids.

But the truth is that drugs are everywhere, and heroin has most certainly been an accessible and lethal drug in the cities, burbs, and small towns too. Maybe it ebbs and flows like a lot of things but to act like the core of the problems is big cities, well, that's just disingenuous. It may get distributed through the cities more consistently, but the market for them is universal as far as I can tell.

I knew middle class suburban kids in high school who used heroin, one of whom fatally OD'd 18 years after he graduated, struggling the whole time with addiction. I knew rich east coast kids in college on heroin who dropped out and disappeared. This was quite a long time ago.

[Rex]

5. Whites buy from whites and blacks buy from blacks?

Maybe in some strange bizarro world.

Drugs, just like drug users, are every color and in every social/economic sphere.

The only people still lying about drugs, are the feds. They still pretend there is no organized crime and drugs are a problem of the working class.

[AngryAmish]

6. Heroin was never a thing where I grew up

Everyone drank like Amos but heroin not so much. Some pot use. It seems to have skipped my generation.

That shit is evil.

[cbayer]

7. We definitely saw a dramatic rise among white, upper class kids

in New Orleans in the early 2000's.

A number of these kids have died, generally accidentally.

They are grossly poorly informed about dosing and what to do if one of their buddies is showing signs of having taken too much.

[Silent3]

8. It's legal to shoot heroin now...

...so long as you claim you shot it in self defense.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Heroin used to be rather expensive and hard to get.

When the WOD went into high gear, it became cheaper and more plentiful. Since then it's been all over the place. This is nothing new, but it's not really discussed much. The only reason they're talking about it now is because some star died.

[KamaAina]

10. My dear childhood upper income white suburban kid friend died at about the same age as Monteith

this was at least ten years ago.

The neighborhood I lived in in NYC before that was just beginning to gentrify its way out of being an open-air drug market. Two factors made it that way: a corrupt police precinct, the "Dirty Thirty", and just as importantly, a location just off the George Washington Bridge, so rich white kids from Jersey could cruise right through, pick up the goods, and drive off.

edit: And River Phoenix died several years before that. Nothing new under the sun.

[nomorenomore08]

11. My friend's brother died in a bar/nightclub bathroom in AZ. 26 years old, basically same age as me.

Upper-middle-class kid from Scottsdale - his sister went to art school in Oakland, which is how I met and became friends with her. Really sad, senseless death that I'm sure his family will be dealing with the rest of their lives.

[HiPointDem]

15. it's changing. when I was a young adult in my town, you could get pot & speed fairly easily.

other drugs, e.g. psychedelics, were out there, but not frequently used. qualudes was the hardest downer i ever heard of anyone taking, those were creepy motorcycle guys. both the 'rich kids' & the 'poor kids' used pot mainly, with some hipster types venturing into psychedelics. nobody used heroin.

today in my town you can get literally anything. we've had 4 heroin houses on our block. and the drug use & dealing is blatant, open, common & the casualties easy to see.

it's way, way different.

the wod is a joke. drugs have become more plentiful and more tolerated every year since it began.