There aren't many days that go by anymore that we don't see a news story involving heroin overdoses. What was once something that, for the most part, was reserved for urban inner-city dwellers has become a nationwide epidemic that has spread into suburbs and even small rural towns.

   Today, it appears no one is safe from heroin's clutches regardless of age, race, marital, parental or economic status. Many of you have probably seen the video of a couple overdosed in the front seat of their suv with their 4 year sitting in the backseat.




   This didn't happen in New York, Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland. It happened in East Liverpool, Ohio, a community of about 13,000 residents. East Liverpool sits nestled on the Ohio River, bordering Pennsylvania and West Virginia.


What Is Heroin?  (from guidedoc.com)

   Heroin, informally known as smack, horse, H, and black tar, is a sticky brown, black, or white powder that is made from morphine, a substance found naturally in the Asian poppy plant.

   Heroin users mix the substance with water and inject it into their bodies with a syringe. Heroin can also be snorted up the nose or smoked in a pipe. No matter which route is used to get it into the body, the substance is very addictive.


Why Is Heroin So Addictive?

    When heroin enters the brain, it devolves from its current state back into morphine. Morphine binds to the receptors in the brain that are involved in the perception of pain and reward—opioid receptors.

    This action causes a sense of euphoria to engulf the user. When the drug wears off, the feeling goes away. It is this longing for the euphoric state induced by heroin that makes it so addictive.

   This state is described by addicts as a feeling of happiness and well-being. When the body adapts to the presence of the drug, the user will experience symptoms of withdrawal until more of the drug is used.

   Many users don’t realize that they have a problem with heroin dependence until they go into withdrawal. Withdrawal from heroin can include bone pain, muscle pain, restlessness, cold flashes, vomiting, and diarrhea.


The Who And Why Of  Heroin Addiction

   It used to be, when someone would say "heroin addict",images of  dirty, shabbily dressed people sitting on an old stained mattress in an abandoned building sticking a needle in their arm would come to mind. That's all changed. Today, people are shooting up in suburban bedrooms, rural living rooms and even late model cars.

   One can't help but wonder how this happens to people. There was a study done in Chicago to find out why people use heroin, called the "Understanding Suburban Heroin Use" study

   The 10-month study of suburban students, parents and heroin users concluded that most people have little knowledge about heroin when they first use it, and one-third of those surveyed starting using it after being addicted to or misusing prescription pain pills such as OxyContin or Vicodin.

   The study also found that more than 75 percent of respondents had a concurrent mental health condition, such as depression, ADHD or bipolar disorder, and used heroin to self-medicate.

 Two-thirds of those surveyed displayed "sensation-seeking behaviors," which researchers translated to mean they got a thrill out of driving to the West Side of Chicago to buy heroin without getting caught.

 The study also found that the suburban heroin user is white, and the average age of first use is 18.




What Is The Eventual Outcome?

   Treatment for heroin addiction consists of counseling, support groups, and medication assisted treatment using drugs that actually trick the addicts brain into thinking it's getting heroin, (without the high), which keeps withdrawal symptoms away and reduces the craving for the drug.

   Unfortunately, The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that between 40 and 60 percent of recovering drug addicts will eventually relapse.

   With heroin, those rates are even higher. Some experts place the rate of relapse for heroin addicts as high as 80 percent, which means that the recovery rate may be as low as 20 percent.





Has NALOXONE (Narcan) Changed The Game?

    Many police, as first responders, carry Naloxone to immediately reverse a heroin overdose. Often times the overdose happens in public and the police, or EMT's administer it in public, which means the whole incident can be filmed by anyone and distributed on the internet.

   There are overdose victims who would say that their lives were anything but "saved" by the public administering of Narcan. Read more here.

  When it comes to heroin overdoses and the use of Narcan, I've heard many people say, "Just let 'em go." They're not saying it in a mean, callous way,.. it's more the way you would compassionately say it regarding a long time beloved pet you don't want to see suffer anymore.

   According to drugrehab.ca,, The actual lifespan of a hardcore heroin addict is about 15 to 20 years. Since most of the heroin addiction will start during their 20's or their 30's, that means most of the hardcore, long-term heroin users will die by the time they are in their 40's or 50's.

   This poses a moral question. Considering the facts, do you think a service is being done to the victims of overdoses by literally bringing them back from the brink of death, often more than once?

   I know the standard "correct" answer would be, "Any time you can save a person's life, you save it.", but I'm curious if there are those out there who feel differently. I am especially curious what people in the fields of Emergency Medical Techs and Law enforcement who, depending on where they work, must see this on a more frequent basis, think.


To End On A Lighter Note...

    Did you see the video of the Australian guy who punched a wild kangaroo in the face to save his dog? Although it was really brave of him, it's not something I would recommend considering the force of a kangaroo's kick can be a bone crushing 180 pounds!