As American states are considering legalizing marijuana, and many are cheering what they see as the government's admission that the war on drugs has failed, a new menace is making a swift and deadly comeback.
The rebuke to President Obama's recent statements that pot has acceptable levels of risk came with a speed and fury that has raised questions on how drug enforcement is carried out in America. The current D.E.A. Chief angrily reaffirmed the agency's belief that pot is a gateway drugs to heavier substances, such as heroin and metamphetamines.
But the numbers and the facts point to a much darker and worrisome source as the drug responsible for the vertiginous rise and resurgence of heroin.
In fact, the number of heroin addicts has doubled since 2005, and this fact is tied, as we will see, to a pharmaceutical trend that has changed the face of America.
The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman this week has brought heroin into the spotlight again. The actor is believed to have died of a heroin overdose. More importantly, was the discovery of multiple packets of a brand of heroin, not seen since 1998, which is not conventional heroin, but a deadly mixture of Fentanyl and heroin. Even more telling was the fact that the actor had numerous bottles of Oxycontin in his apartment.
But let's start from the beginning. About a decade or so ago, doctors begun prescribing a potent pain killer, Oxycontin, and similar opiates, for pain management for a very wide array of symptoms, from minor to serious. However, they did so after the FDA , the Federal Drug agency, opened the pharmaceutical for a wide range of uses. However Oxycontin is a powerful painkiller that should be employed only in extreme cases, due to the extremely addictive qualities of the compound and the fact that alone, and in conjunction with alcohol, it already claimed lives.
Oxycontin became America's darling 10 or so years ago. Prescribed at first for minor and major pain alike, and even for minor dentistry work, it has quickly become the chief substance in new addictions registered in the past decade.
But why did doctors prescribe Oxycontin so freely? The question may lie in big pharma's realization of the profit potential in the new wide and unrestricted application of the drug. The drug was almost never even dispensed with a warning of its addictive potential.
The question arises: did the doctors not know the potential for addiction of the drug? And if so, who is to blame? Is it the pharmaceutical for not indicating the potential for abuse in the people who are prescribed the drugs? Or isit the medical community? Is it the FDA?
Whoever is responsible for the explosive employment of Oxycontin for all people, some of very young age, they should bear responsibility for it being the true gateway drug for heroin.
Studies have shown that the new wave of heroin addiction is driven by the fact that people who have become addicted to Oxycontin switched to heroin when the drug became restricted or they could no longer afford it. A cheaper substitute, heroin, soon became available on the market in greater and greater quantities, to fill in the demand that was created by both the dispensation and later, the attempt at regulating the prescription of Oxycontoin.
However, this is not your father's heroin. The new product, including the one that could have been responsible for Hoffman's death, is a mixture of the opiate and a lethal synthetic called Fentanyl.
The new batch of heroin has garnered the attention of authorities in the past month. More than 150 addicts have died in the northeast due to this lethal combination drug.
Why then, did and still does, Oxycontin become available to those who seek it, or from doctors who are not restricting its use for less than major pain issues?
The effects of Oxycontin are well documented. From Hollywood stars to regular people, the trend has exploded, especially in poor communities where in some cases it has completely destroyed the fabric of society. Together with meth, the poor man's high, Oxycontin has quickly become the new scourge. And that is because most people prefer it for its potent high, but also because it being legal, it gives the user a false sense of security, both that it not be tainted and safe for consumption.
About a year ago, individual states begun cracking down on Oxycontin pill mills, which had sprung up in states where prescription drugs were loosely regulated.
For a while, in fact, states like Florida had become little more than illegal mills for addicts and dealers who came from as far as North Dakota to obtain the drug. Unscrupulous doctors were doling out multiple prescription, unethically but not illegally at prices that ranged from 300$ to 1000$ a pop. When new laws were passed, or drug enforcement forces cracked down on the pill mills and some of these shady outfits shut down, many addicts were forced to switch to street drugs, and they switched to heroin.
But the new heroin poses incredible risk. The combination of two potent brain stem activity suppressors are the perfect recipe for death. Some people even think that an evil mind is behind the new drug mixture, in an episode similar to that of Mensa member and chemist Mark Bart, who killed scores of addicts by producing a lethal drug concoction and then releasing it into the streets. Bart's aim was to kill: he detested addicts, and thought he was doing the world a favor.
The continued prescription of Oxycontin poses the ethical question of what really drives new drug epidemic, and whether people's health and safety are at risk because of the pharmaceutical industry's relentless drive for profit.
Op-ed
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