Pacific Standard featured an article by Jordan Rosenfeld on five studies regarding addiction as a disease, and we thought it was worth sharing here. Below is an excerpt from the section relevant to the heroin epidemic affecting Ohio, and there’s a link below to the full article. We hope you’ll take the time to read it, and if you recognize yourself or a loved one, please reach out for treatment.
A RISE IN PRESCRIPTION OPIOIDS IS LINKED TO A SURGE IN HEROIN ABUSE
There remains a painful irony in how addicts are created by the very culture where they are later vilified. A study published this year in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy links the abuse of prescription opioid (PO) drugs to an increase in heroin abuse, which, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, has surged by 63 percent in the past 10 years. The origins of the PO surge stem from a 1992 report issued by the Agency for Healthcare Quality Research, which stated concerns that up to half of patients were not receiving adequate postsurgical pain treatment. This concern was later proven false, but it set in motion a massive uptick in opiod prescriptions as doctors rushed to “fix” this (perceived) error by offering more PO prescriptions. Between 1998 and 2007, prescriptions for hydrocodone increased by 198 percent, oxycodone by 588 percent, and methadone by 933 percent. Soon after, more people began bypassing their doctors altogether, getting their drugs from online pharmacies that either didn’t require a prescription or would accept obviously falsified ones.
POs, which bind to the same brain receptors as heroin, are considered “gateway” drugs, especially as heroin is less expensive (oxycodone, for example, can cost approximately $8 to $10/dose, whereas a whole 50mg bag of heroin, $9 to $10). As the CDC notes, 45 percent of people who have used heroin were also addicted to a proscription opioid. And people who are currently addicted to proscription opioids are 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.