White House launches plan to counter explosion in heroin use

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

EDGARTOWN, Mass. (Reuters) - The White House announced a new strategy on Monday to tackle the explosion in heroin use in a collection of eastern states, focusing on treating addicts rather than punishing them and targeting high-level suppliers for arrest.

The move is a response to a sharp rise in the use of heroin and opiate-based painkillers, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has described as an epidemic.

Heroin use has more than doubled among people aged 18-25 in the United States in the past decade, according to CDC figures, while overdose death rates have nearly quadrupled. An estimated 45 percent of U.S. heroin users are also addicted to prescription painkillers.

Announcing the 'Heroin Response Strategy' on Monday, Michael Botticelli, Director of National Drug Control Policy, said the new plan will address the heroin and painkiller epidemics as both "a public health and a public safety issue."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-launches-plan-counter-explosion-heroin-163037082.html

[valerief]

1. Of course, there's an explosion in heroin use. Thank you, Afghanistan.

[Sunlei]

9. IMO, poppys are grown here. The real 'explosion' is meth use, so easy to make and destructive.

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. Meth use is actually stable, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health.

The survey doesn't break meth out specifically, but the use of all "psychotherapeutics" has remained stable at between 2.5% and 2.7% of the population over the past decade.

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. The vast majority of our heroin comes from Mexico and Colombia.

And speaking of unintended consequences: As the trend toward marijuana legalization in the US continues, Mexican marijuana farmers are switching to the opium poppy because they can't make money growing pot anymore.

[Gregorian]

2. But banksters...not so much.

Where are our priorities.

I'll take William S Burroughs over Jamie Dymon any fucking day of the week.

[msongs]

3. obama visits prison, obama announces plan to put more people in prison. prohibition does

not work

[FrodosPet]

4. Legalize heroin

And let Darwin help take care of the problem.

Sucks for the survivors when a loved one dies from overdose, but you can't fix stupid.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. Agree, and the "war on drugs" is unwinnable ...

Supply will meet demand. Even Repubs can understand that.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

6. Legalize all drugs. Defund the Drug War - use the money for treatment and education.

I think the outcome would have to be better that what we have now.

[snooper2]

7. are you making stuff up?

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. More signs the Economy is not working for many

Looking for a root cause. A rise in Heroin abuse is very telling about what is not working in this economy.

[whatthehey]

10. Just as likely to be the nigh impossibility of getting real pain meds legally

The article gives more detail than the clickbait headline and says this jump is also in opioid pain killers, which are after all heroin's near cousins. If doctors won't get you out of chronic agony, dealers will.