Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: Why do people Abuse Drugs

While addressing the importance of prevention of heroin overdose in the societies from our previous article which you can make reference to, we indicated that we will discuss with you some points you need to know about the impact of heroin overdose in our societies. This is what we want to focus on in this section primarily looking at the heroin and drug abuse management options available for us in the fight a against drug abuse. Doctor Dalal Akoury is going to educate us on what we need to know about this problem and the following are some of the points we want to discuss:

• Majority of new users get to heroin as a result of addiction to prescription drugs.
• Quitting heroin is the easy part the hard part is staying off.
• The users trying to quit for good run the greatest risk of overdose.
• We could stop people from dying of overdose, except we can’t find them.

Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: Majority of new users get to heroin as a result of addiction to prescription drugs

Heroin users like any other drug abuser are not really copying this practice from their favorite rock musicians. Currently the available statistics is estimating that about 80% of new heroin users are lured into the drug after becoming addicted to the prescription pain medication. Due to a new medical focus on treating pain alongside false advertising by pharmaceutical companies, opiate painkiller prescriptions exploded from 76 million in 1991 to 219 million in 2011. The translation of this is that almost one for every American adult. This necessitated the authorities to begin responding to the growing addiction and overdose by cracking down on prescription excess and fraudulent pill mills. With the intervention of the authorities, those patients who found themselves addicted when their prescriptions ran out of supply, resorted for the cheap accessible pills on the street. Many switched from $50 Oxycontin pills to $10 doses of heroin. That is why in my introduction I indicated that, it is essential that government agencies and medical professionals keep working together to reduce our reliance on opiate painkillers. Nevertheless since more opiate-addicted patients are cut off from their legal supply, many more will turn to heroin. It is time to address our society’s heroin problem.

Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: Quitting heroin is easy the hard part is staying off

A serious heroin user who misses a dose or two suffers the painful withdrawal like that of the story in our last article where the young boy had to be jailed. Worse than the physical symptoms are the debilitating depression and the knowledge that just one dose would make all the pains go away. In a few days, withdrawal ends but the cravings do not. Long-term heroin use causes users to hunger for heroin just in the same way we often hunger for food. Most users today have been through treatment multiple times, and only five to fifteen percent stay off for good. It is not a question of low self-control, cravings never ends, it may not show for a while but when triggered, it may not matter how long you have been off the drugs you are still able to relapse. Realistically people can relapse due to the loss of their jobs, problems with relationships. Besides these your success can also be a trigger for relapse. For instance if you have made great achievement in your business or profession, you may want to reward yourself with a single celebration that can lead to total relapse.

The society is not helping either. We often feel adamant in accepting the rehabilitated addicts or those who have served their jail terms. Take for example many organizations are not willing to absorb former convicts in job positions. Actually very few if will hire someone with a criminal record, especially for heroin. Just when users need help rebuilding a stable life, their criminal records cripple their job applications and bar them from college loans, assistance programs and professional licenses.

Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: The users trying to quit for good run the greatest risk of overdose.

Regular heroin users know how much of the drug their bodies can take. They increase their habit slowly, building up a high opiate tolerance. But when they quit, their bodies rapidly lose this tolerance. If they stay clean for a few weeks and then inject their usual dose, the dose may be fatal. If you followed the story of the young boy who only after two weeks of freedom from jail term, borrowing his friend’s car, his tolerance dropped enough that the usual dose killed him.

Others die from taking heroin with cocaine and alcohol, or from bad batches that the dealer mixed poorly or blended with toxic substances. Bad batches are par for the course, since the dealer’s only qualification as a pharmacist is his willingness to risk his life and the lives of others. But the most common reason for overdose is relapse use. In fact, studies show that people who die of heroin overdose actually have on average lower levels of heroin in their bodies than living users. This means that it is the people trying hardest to quit who are at the greatest risk of dying.

Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: We could stop people from dying of overdose, except we can’t find them

Many are surprised to learn that heroin overdose deaths are entirely preventable. Naloxone which is administered by injection or nasal spray reverses overdose within seconds by dislodging the drug from the brain’s opiate receptor sites. Naloxone is available in hospitals and carried by paramedics and some police officers. In a small number of cities, community-based overdose programs train users, family and friends to administer naloxone. Now the question that begs for an answer is “if we can stop heroin overdoses, why do they still claim the lives of our people daily?” this is possibly because users inject alone and in hiding. Any heroin user who attempted to ensure his or her safety by injecting in a hospital or near a policeman would be arrested. Even when users overdose around others, fellow users often hesitate to call 911. In 29 states, if a user calls 911 to save a friend from overdose, police can arrest those at the scene for drug possession. Naloxone has great potential to save lives, but the fear of arrest prevents it from realizing this potential.

Heroin and Drug Abuse Management Options: Why do people Abuse Drugs