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Thursday, October 09, 2014

Hardly Anyone Uses Heroin. So Why Do We Keep Freaking Out About It?

Heroin deaths are on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The overdose death rate from heroin doubled in two years, from 1 death per 100,000 population in 2010 to 2.1 deaths in 2012. These statistics are alarming, and they are likely to add to a collective heroin freak-out that's been ongoing since at least February this year, when Philip Seymour Hoffmann overdosed on heroin and some other drugs. But it's important to keep these numbers in context. To wit:

Heroin use is vanishingly rare.

We don't know exactly how many people regularly use heroin in the United States. That's partly because relatively few people actually use it, which makes counting these people via traditional means, like surveys, difficult to do.

A floor estimate comes from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which showed 289,000 monthly heroin users in 2013. That works out to about one tenth of one percent of all Americans aged 12+. There's good reason to suspect that people under-report heroin use, however. An alternative measure developed by researchers at the RAND corp. for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy suggests there may be as many as 1.5 million regular heroin users -- that is, those who use the drug four days a month or more.

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9 comments:

  1. Use is low because there are other means of getting the same high legally. Oxy through your Doctor.

    Now that the gov is cracking down on the Oxy you can expect to see a rise in heroin use. And heroin deaths.

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  2. Actually the heroin problem is tied into the policing of pain management doctors.
    The pills have become prohibitively expensive. Or so I hear from other informed individuals.

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  3. Misleading garbage, to say heroin use is rare , then in the next sentence state the correct fact that the number of users is unknown. Poor writing and even worse understanding of the issue.

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  4. If heroin use is so low than why does it seem that there are daily arrests in Delaware for large quantities of it?

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  5. this area is LOADED with heroine and other drugs. my grandson almost died from using. pray the local law enforcement works to rid this area of this evil and all it brings.

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  6. Ever since the CIA won the Afghanistan war and got control of the poppies we have seen heroin out of control.

    The Taliban did not believe in growing the poppies. They are religious people.

    I'm glad they are gone. Now the CIA can use that money to help over throw other unruly dictators around the world.

    Heroin use is supporting our war against Terror. Use more of it.

    It is actually patriotic now to use heroin. The more money the CIA can make, the more money they have to wage war against those who hate us for our freedoms.

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  7. Don't kid yourself. Heroin use is fairly high right now because the pills are getting harder to get and more expensive all the time. If you can't afford the pills you can get Heroin much cheaper. Guy in DE just got attested couple of days with almost 2000 little bags of Heroin. It's horrible stuff and the first time people try it they are hooked on it and will want it for the rest of their lives. Heroin is not going away any time soon. Don't believe the lies.

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  8. No one's getting Ebola either but everyone is freaking out about it.

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  9. Come sit in a court room for awhile and see the parade of heroin addicts....

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