News / Education
Heroin Abuse Not Pretty Picture
Heroin did not used to frequently attract recreational users
This is no longer the case. The dangers and stigma of shooting up, that used to keep most away from heroin, are now gone. Thanks in part to the availability of cheap high quality heroin, the drug can now be snorted to achieve the heroin high. With the cheap cost (A bag of heroin is around $10 to $20 dollars) and easy high, heroin has become more attractive to casual users and kids.
Its recent attraction does not change the fact that heroin is one of the most deadly and addictive drugs available on the street. Anytime someone becomes addicted they are lowering their survival chances by fifty percent.
Heroin is being imported in vast quantities by Mexican drug cartels to such places like Greenville South Carolina and unsuspecting drug abusers are getting into trouble. Starting out with recreational use, it is not uncommon to find them unwittingly addicted and thinking of little else.
Scenes typical of drug addicted individuals are starting to emerge on a more regular basis in South Carolina, such as apartments overcrowded with addicts only interested in feeding their addiction and oblivious to all else.
One unfortunate heroin addict, badly in need of treatment and released on bail for drug charges in South Carolina was found dead in his apartment in North Carolina before he made it to his court date. The crying baby in the apartment only helped to underscore the fact that addiction is taking some good people to a scary place.
The system is not prepared for the avalanche that is about to hit with the increase in heroin addicts. The Carolinas have had their share of methamphetamine abusers, but heroin came in from left field. If adjustments are not made in the system and treatment is not made more readily available, the Carolinas could lose more of its good citizens.
We must begin to offer drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration. Drug offenders need help, they need to be given guidance. The problem is that in the Carolinas, the needed services are not in place because no one expected this situation. The judges in cases where drug addiction is apparent have no option but to release the offender until a hearing or let them sit in the county jail.
Heroin users are a liability to local jails, many need medical detox and releasing them on cash bonds is a way to lessen the load on the local jail. If the judge in this young man’s case had an alternative he surely would have preferred sending him to rehab.
The problem has arrived and will not disappear on its own and will not resolve through sentencing.
Only effective drug treatment and prevention at a level commensurate with the influx will address the problem at a level to make a difference.
