Heroin is a growing problem across the country, one city in particular has seen a rise in its use and amount of overdoses caused by Heroin.
Denver, Colorado has begun to crackdown on the abuse of prescription pills, which has had a negative effect that wasn’t foreseen. By making prescription opioids harder to legally obtain, addicts have turned to the streets to fill their needs.
Heroin is much cheaper than pills, so the addicts can get more of a fix from buying it.
Prescriptions Down Heroin Up
Opioids where often prescribed to relieve pain and added to the growing numbers of drug abuse and addiction. Detox to Rehab (link detoxtorehab.com) stated that 39 percent of the 870 drug overdose deaths in 2014, were caused by pain relievers.
Lisa Raville, Executive Director at the Denver-based Harm Reduction Action Center said, “We’re in the midst of an overdose epidemic in the U.S. and in the state of Colorado.
“The overdoses are getting out of control.”
While overdoses from prescription medication has been a problem all over the U.S for years, Colorado now has one of the lowest prescription rates in the United States. This is due in part to a Provider and Prescriber Education Workgroup put together by the Hickenlooper Administration and the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.
However, this is not stopping the addicts from using. Since they can’t easily get the prescription medications anymore they are instead turning to Heroin.
It was stated on Detox to Rehab in a paraphrase from Boulder police Sgt. Jeff Kessler that, “prescription drugs can cost up to $40 a pill, while $20 can give the addict more than one Heroin fix, which leads users to turn to Heroin.”
Overdoses
The low price and high availability of Heroin drives prescription drug abusers to use Heroin, which in almost all cases is much stronger than the drug they were using before.
“We definitely saw an uptick in heroin-related deaths,” Kessler said. “Unfortunately, Heroin has a very large presence.”
According to the Colorado Department of Human Services there has been a 27 percent increase in Heroin abuse among 18 to 24 year olds in the state.
Robert Valuck, coordinator of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse said that this increase is a “part of a lifespan problem that’s linked to prescription drugs.”
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