Following the recent death of American actor and director Philip Seymour Hoffman, people have begun to open up about their concerns regarding rising rates of drug overdosing in America. Hoffman had been clean for 23 years, only recently relapsing.
And indeed, it seems that the rates of drug overdoses are definitely rising. According to the CDC, between 2000 and 2010 the number of people that died from overdoses doubled, going from 17,000 to 38,000.
It seems this could be largely due to the increasing rate of overdoses due to prescription drugs, and the increasing quantity of prescription drugs in the market. In 2012, 12.5 million people reportedly used prescription painkillers without advisement of a doctor. Attempts to crack down on this black market, however, may have had an unintended side effect. The number of heroin users in the past five years has doubled as a possible side effect, as heroin is much cheaper and more easily accessible than pharmaceutical opioids.
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5 comments:
I think there are multiple of factors contributing to the rise of heroin.
One factor is the economic pressure. Because heroin is relatively cheap, more people are likely to use heroin instead of expensive, regulated, prescription drugs. There was an interesting article on SF Gate called Shame of the City (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SHAME-OF-THE-CITY-HOMELESS-ISLAND-They-live-2510831.php) which chronicled the homeless of San Francisco. Most of the homeless were reported of being stuck in a cycle of hard drugs, which lead to a downward spiral. These people grew up with normal lives, however, during a time of personal economic troubles, these people were unemployed, idle, and were in need of pain killers. Thus, in a way, economy is a factor to the drug wars. I feel more economic support for those below the poverty line would be a beneficial step to the eliminate the drug problem. Those without work and looking for ways to eliminate pain may resort to hard drugs, and I think there needs to be more options for these people.
Another factor is the state of mental healthcare in America. These same people were also found to have mental disorders prior to their drug use. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, people with mental ailments may resort to drugs. Given the expensiveness of prescription drugs, some people may resort to harder, cheaper drugs. I think there needs to be a more accessible healthcare for those in need. I think that mental health facilities especially needs some more growth. There is a lack of mental health facilities, and there seems to be a social stigma against being a mental health patient.
There are probably more factors contributing to the growth of hard drugs, and I think it is important for the US to view the problem through a multitude of perspectives.
I completely agree with Alex that the reason for increased drug use is due to the lack of resources to improve one's life, like a job, healthcare, etc. Although, there is clearly a drug problem in Hollywood and these celebrities can afford to have help. I think that drugs, both in Hollywood and on the streets, is used, at least initially, to escape stress. To fix this issue, like Alex, I think there should be more openly available mental health facilities, but also more education and stricter regulation on drug usage.
Alex raises some very important points, especially the insufficiency of our healthcare system. Without a system like universal healthcare, many seek relief through their own means rather than through medical professionals, who would provide better approaches but charge much more money. This lack of access to quality care is a centerpiece of this issue and can explain part of the problem with drug abuse.
However, I don't think it's fair to say that the drug war, in regards to prescription drugs, is not working. It certainly isn't decreasing numbers, but I wonder how much higher these numbers would be if law enforcement agencies did not crack down on this at all, so while they may not be reducing the problem, I wonder to what extent they have successfully kept this growth from skyrocketing.
Alex, you make some very good points about the economy that I had not considered. I agree that it's very likely that decreased poverty would help decrease the prevalence of hard drugs. However, I don't know that this would have much an effect on prescription drugs, as money does not seem to be a large factor with those.
I definitely agree with your comments regarding the stigma of mental illness, however. If mental illness were treated much in the same way as physical ailments, it would probably be just that much easier to access healthcare (although universal healthcare is something we are still working on as a country.)
Brandon, that last thought is certainly an interesting one. I'm also curious as to how much of an effect the government has had, but then again, I don't think it's really ethical to test that. But I see your point.
In line with what Brandon said, it would be a mistake to label the drug war as "clearly not working," when incidences and deaths due to drug overdoses may very well be much higher without governmental intervention. But arrests and regulation only solves the symptoms of this problem, which itself has a myriad of causes. From an economics standpoint, its clearly indisputable that there is a demand for prescription or illegal drugs such as heroin and ADD medicine, a self-perpetuating demand initially caused by a lack of happiness (drugs would be a consumer good) and then perpetuated by addiction. That lack of happiness could be from poverty, pain, depression, peer pressure, medical disorders, what have you. In a perfect world, none of this would happen (supposedly), yet this world is far from perfect. According to Adam Smith, a laissez-faire society will eventually progress to a utopia as a constantly improving society (given the rational actor assumption). It's like limits in mathematics, as t approaches infinity x becomes something. Eventually, with enough education ,resource allocation, health care , illness prevention, and market adjustment, there will no longer be a need for recreational drug usage, at least in theory. Regulation is ultimately a stop gap measure in place of long term solutions, that most likely never will completely eradicate the need for drugs but will come closer than anything we can do in the status quo.
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