The Problem Of Heroin Addiction Sweeps Small Towns ¨ And David Muir Reporting Breaking Point Heroin

In the United States alone, there are 1.2 million people who are using heroin. 600,000 of those users are addicted to heroin and use 150 to 250 milligrams on a daily basis. 700,000 Americans are needing treatment but are not receiving it. Heroin is more deadly than car accidents. From 2001 to 2014 there was a five-hundred percent increase in the total number of deaths. Although injection of the drug has declined, smoking has increased because the cost of clean needles has gone up and to newer users it is easier. While the popularity of Heroin in the United States of America has grown, Florida and California have the most heroin seized by law enforcement. Diacetylmorphine was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Wright. an English chemist working at St. Mary 's Hospital Medical School in London. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids and sent it off to be analyzed.

Heroin, a white powder, was created in 1874, and was sold as a safe substitute for morphine. However, it was discovered that heroin produced a quick dependency in people. Heroin and other opiates were made illegal in 1920 as part of the Dangerous Drugs Act. Still today, however, Heroin is illegally manufactured and imported, largely from the Indian sub-continent.

In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat

Heroin overdoses, have become a bigger issue over the last few years. Heroin is made from morphine, which itself is a very powerful and addictive drug. In an article on nlm.nih.gov they found that around .6% of people between the ages of 15-64 use heroin. About 23 percent of people who use the drug become dependent on it. Overdoses frequently involve suppression

rate and cities are struggling to find solutions. The CDC reports that 27,000 people die each year due to heroin overdoses. The jails are filled with offenders, that once released go out and use again, continuing a cycle of insanity without producing answers. Youths experiment with drugs, which is nothing new, but the availability of heroin, meth and the lack of education has contributed greatly to this epidemic. No one seemed to be paying any attention until it reached epidemic proportions, or as some have suggested, became "a white middle class problem" that surpassed the poor minority population.

Since the 19th century, the illicit drug, heroin, has been a part of American society. When heroin was first discovered it was thought to be a wonder drug because of the euphoric feeling a person is said to feel after using it. However, once the debilitating effects of this highly addictive drug was realized the anti-drug law, the Harrison Narcotics Act, was enacted that restricted its use to medicinal purposes only. In 1920, heroin was banned altogether through the Dangerous Drug Act (Habal, 2011). Heroin for the most part was thought to have gone underground until the Vietnam War.

In late 1800s to 1916 pharmacists and chemical manufacturers foreseen a way to make a non-addictive opioid. Heroin, marketed by the Bayer Corporation of Germany in the 1890s, was originally at the beginning of this. After heroin?s ban in America, two German scientists created oxycodone. It was recognized as a non-addictive, semi-synthetic substitute

In late 1800s to 1916 pharmacists?, chemical manufacturers have foreseen a way to make a non-addictive opioid. Heroin, marketed by the Bayer Corporation of Germany in the 1890s, was originally at the beginning of this. After heroin?s ban in America, two German scientists created oxycodone. It was

Today there are many different drugs in circulation. Those drugs are not always used properly or legally. Opioids present a contradiction in legal history along with pharmaceutical history. Opioids have a long history, starting with the creation of heroin, as a cough suppressant. Since then the federal government and FDA have stepped in to remove heroin from the public and come up with new medicines that seem to mimic the effect of heroin but be safe enough to sell on a public scale. Unfortunately even as medicines are made for public use, these medications are still proven to be prone to addiction and even overdose. These FDA approved opioids are gateway drugs to heroin. There is a pattern among those

According to Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, there were 578 heroin-related deaths statewide last year; 487 people died in motor vehicle accidents. There were 33 fatalities due to heroin in 2014 in Montgomery county, up from 11 in 2010. Heroin is the most addictive drug on the planet, on Nutt’s addiction

“Heroin was first isolated from morphine in 1874 and was originally used as a 'safe' (that is, non-addictive) cure for morphine addiction. This was later found to be incorrect and in the 1900s heroin abuse and addiction became common. It is now classified as a Class A drug and possession or trading in it results in heavy penalties in most countries”.

Heroin originated from a flower, the opium poppy, these types of flowers are grown in Mexico, Asia, and South America. The narcotic drug has been illegal in the United States since 1924. Further back heroin at the end of the 19th century was used for recreational and medical purposes in the United States and England. In England, working class families used the opium fluid for “all types of illnesses and injuries.” Most of the time the supplier was not a doctor, and overdosing was uncommon and unusual. In the United States, the liquid opium drug was called laudanum. Women during this period were the ones that consumed most of the opium drugs, men would turn to alcohol beverages to find stress relief. The Chinese abused the drug, when it came

Heroin is a highly addictive illegal drug, derived from morphine and used by millions of users around the world. It is a naturally occurring opiate found in opium poppies and is primarily grown in Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Mexico, and Columbia (National, 2015), but has been illegal in the United States since the early 1900’s. In its purest form, heroin is a fine white powder, but more often, it is found to be rose gray, brown or black in color (Foundation, 2016). The coloring comes from additives which have been used to dilute it (Foundation, 2016). These dilutes can include sugar, caffeine or other substances (Foundation, 2016). In medicine, diamorphine, the main product found in heroin, is used to treat sever pain, such as from a heart

Heroin use and overdose related deaths have increased considerably in the United States in recent years (Jones, Logan, Gladden, & Bohm, 2015). The results of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health [NSDUH] (2014), showed in the year 2013, approximately 517,000 Americans abused heroin, which was almost a 150 percent increase since 2007 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2014). According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA] (2014), in the year 2011, 4.2 million people who were twelve years of age or older said they used heroin at least once in their lifetime. Furthermore, data from NSDUH showed approximately 460 people, twelve years of age or older, used heroin each day in 2013 (Lipari and Hughes, 2015). An even more frightening statistic is death rates doubled for people who were twelve years of age or older as a result of heroin overdose in the years 2010 through 2012 (Hedegaard, Chen, and Warner, 2015).

Heroin is not new. In fact, the first growth and cultivation of opium dates back to around 3400 B.C. during the ancient Mesopotamian age. Tom Carnwath briefly discusses the origin of this now over-powering substance in his book “Heroin Century”. Carnwarth mentions that at one point in history even the Romans used it for tinctures, tablets, poultices, and lozenges. It wasn’t consistently being used until the sixteenth-century when physician Paracelsus began to prescribe it to his patients as he