The well known author and addiction specialist, Stanton Peele, has claimed that people rarely die from heroin overdoses. He asserts that the reason why most people die from heroin is a result of users mixing the drug with other drugs, such as cocaine and tranquilizers. He does, however, also say that a big component of death by overdose is the fact that most of today’s street heroin is mixed with other chemicals, and hardly ever remains pure. If addicts, then, received purer heroin, the likelihood of death would be extremely low.
The problem drug rehabs face when dealing with substance abuse treatment center patients who are addicted to heroin, is that these users are injecting street heroin. Very often, drug rehabs encounter patients at their substance abuse treatment centers who use black tar heroin, the dirtiest heroin on the market. This type of heroin is easy for drug rehab patients to get, and it is cheap and deadly because it’s mixed with a lot of harmful toxic ingredients. One bad batch could send a user to an early grave.
Unfortunately, this black tar heroin available on the streets is what substance abuse treatment center patients typically refer to as heroin. Although Stanton Peele’s assertion that pure heroin doesn’t kill, it is obviously not a regulated, controlled substance that is sold at pharmacies for addicts to easily acquire. Drug rehabs encounter heroin users every day in their substance abuse treatment centers who are at risk for overdose every time they inject street heroin. In places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York, Portland, and Espanola, New Mexico, heroin is killing the nation’s youth by the droves. Substance Abuse Treatment Centers have the answer for black tar heroin users, and it’s not to start looking for purer dope. The answer for heroin addiction is total abstinence from the drug. Patients at drug rehabs are learning how to help themselves by acquiring the tools necessary to stay off the street dope.
