Heroin Epidemic

Heroin is not just a cheap and accessible drug.  It’s very pure — and more dangerous than ever. The mix of affordability, accessibility, and opiod-induced euphoria makes heroin particularly appealing to cash-strapped, pleasure-seeking teens and young people who, by virtue of their youth, rarely have a sense of their own mortality. Despite its ostensible affordability, though, that wash of euphoria actually comes at a very high price. The number of “bad batches” has risen sharply. As heroin has boomed, so have the number of enterprising operators, hoping to maximize profit by cutting the heroin with sedatives and other drugs. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid used to manage severe pain (it’s often prescribed in the form of transdermal patches, like Duragesic, to treat cancer pain), is one of those drugs. Fentanyl is estimated to be from 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and five to 15 times stronger than heroin. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell from looking at a bag whether or not it’s laced, so using, even once, is tantamount to a game of Russian roulette. Even if you don’t get a bad batch, you’re still in real danger.