23
How Serious a Problem Is Heroin Addiction?
To conduct the study, Cicero and his colleagues analyzed data from
surveys and interviews involving nearly twenty-eight hundred adults.
All had been clinically diagnosed with addiction of either prescription
opioids or heroin, and all had sought
treatment. The researchers gathered in-
formation about each person’s gender,
race/ethnicity, and age of first drug use,
as well as which opioid (prescription
painkiller or heroin) had been abused.
As the study authors write: “Respon-
dents indicated in an open-ended for-
mat why they chose heroin as their
primary drug and the interrelationship
between their use of heroin and their
use of prescription opioids.”
26
By the conclusion of the study it
was clear that the demographics of her-
oin users and addicts had changed dramatically over the past few decades.
Respondents who had begun using heroin in the 1960s were primarily
young urban males, African American and Caucasian, who began using
heroin while in their teens. In contrast, 90 percent of heroin users who
started on the drug more recently are white males and females, typically
in their mid-twenties, with three-fourths being from less urban areas.
Another important finding of the study was that more than 75 percent
of the more recent heroin users started abusing prescription painkillers
before they ever tried heroin. “In the past,” says Cicero, “heroin was a
drug that introduced people to narcotics. But what we’re seeing now is
that most people using heroin begin with prescription painkillers such as
OxyContin, Percocet or Vicodin, and only switch to heroin when their
prescription drug habits get too expensive.”
27
A Nationwide Problem
As reports of heroin addiction and overdose deaths have continued to
mount, this has created a difficult struggle for communities throughout
the United States. Many that had little or no heroin-related problems in
the past are suddenly gripped by an unprecedented public health crisis. In
a 2014 article, Associated Press journalist Andrew Welsh-Huggins writes:
Many [com-
munities] that
had little or no
heroin-related
problems in the
past are suddenly
gripped by an un-
precedented pub-
lic health crisis.
“
”
