Heroin Epidemic Essay

The drug abuse or what we refer to as the substance use disorder can define as a chronic and complex brain disease. Drug abuse sometimes leads to compulsive and uncontrollable, cravings to someone drug of choice. This makes someone to continue using this drug despite being quite aware of their negative impacts and all the harms that these drugs can cause. Many people start using drugs mostly in the social situation at very low quantities but addiction comes when the use becomes more frequent. Drug addiction can also be as the result of someone being exposed to prescribed medications, for instance, being exposed to opioids such as Heroin or sometimes receiving medication from a relative or a friend who has been prescribed with a certain drug. When one is exposed to drugs, the risk that he /she can get addicted varies by the drug type with one using the opioids painkillers having a high tendency of being a drug addict. Drug addict sometimes needs a high amount of drugs to get high, or even sometimes need these drugs so that they can just feel good and as their drug use habit increases it becomes very difficult for them to go without the use drugs. Hence, any attempt to stop the use of these drugs may lead to intense craving making them feel physically ill. The drugs addicts, therefore, may need help from their friends, families, doctors, the support groups, and even organizational programs so that they can overcome their addiction and become drug-free.

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If for instance, you examine the day to day life of an alcohol addict, you will realize or it will be very clear to you that not all the heroin addict live in the same condition or have the same lifestyle. But it can be concluded that they all have the common threads. There are three categories of heroin addicts, and these are; the struggling addicts, the working-class and the high functioning addicts. The straggling addicts are the heroin addicts that that don't have any job that supports their heroin addiction and they hardly find the money to buy these kinds of drugs. The addicts in this group always go through a rough time and they always find it hard to survive. The working class addicts are those that typically support their habit through their jobs. The third category high function addicts are the CEO and business owners who use heroin daily. Those in this category always don't have to resolve in petty activities in order to support their habit. In all the categories, the addicts have the same threads and they have to use the drug in the morning, midday, the evening and even at night in order to keep their functionality normal.

In the United States, foreign sources are responsible for most of the supply of heroin consumed. There have efforts that have made to reduce the domestic Heroin availability but these efforts have been facing a lot of challenges. This opium is mainly produced in three main sources, and these are; the Latin America, the Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia and thus creating a worldwide problem. It is difficult to determine the amount on this opium that consumed in these producing regions but what we understand is that a significant amount of is converted into heroin and later sent to North America, Europe, Russia, central Asia and China. The method of transshipping, the routes are taken and the volume produced differ/vary with the producing region.

Addicts source money to buy drugs from many from many areas including, borrowing friends, their families, and even their workmates. They can also source money from stealing, carjacking, shoplifting and many other criminal activities. We also have the addicts with blue color jobs and these addicts always source money from their jobs. And those who own their own enterprises, source money from their businesses. The most serious effect of lack of money to support drug addiction is that the addicts always involve themselves in criminal activities as I have mentioned early. When addicts mostly unemployed, lack money to sustain their addictions and maybe their families and friends are unwilling to give them money. These people always tend to think of involving themselves in criminal activities, and if the addicts are female, they may think of involving themselves in prostitution.

The story of Tiffany Jenkins tells us of a woman who left a double life because of her addiction. In her story, she has demonstrated how addiction made her look terrible and involved herself in criminal activities that she was even arrested and jailed for 4 months (Jenkins, n.d.). Jenkins clearly demonstrate all the this that Heroin can do to the addicts by writing her own story and all the things that she went through when she was an addict when she wasn't an addict.

According to the investigations that have been carried out it has been found that the current crisis by opioids is the worst drug overdose epidemic in the whole of the United States. In 2012 alone doctors in the United States indicated that 259 million prescriptions of opioids consumed by the drug addicts are even enough to give every American adult a bottle of them. The investigations also reveal that more than 33000 people died in 2015 because of opioids in the United States. It has also been revealed that drug overdose course more than deaths than the car accidents in the United States. And that, deaths from heroin alone have gone over the gun homicide deaths in the United States of America. Looking at these figures we can clearly say that heroin is among the deadliest killer epidemic in the United States.

The overdose deaths and opioids misuse have been increasing/rising in the United States in the last two decades. From 2000 to 2013 alone, the rate of opioid overdose among all the ages, race, ethnicities and gender increased nearly four times, increasing to 2.7 from 0.7 per 100000 people. Following this drugs overdose has now been identified as the single greatest cause of what we refer to as the unintentional deaths in the United States.

For example, in Suffolk County which is in downtown New York was particularly hit hard by this epidemic, with 337 heroin-related cases of deaths just between 2009 and 2013. this County has been reporting many such cases of deaths than any other County in New York State. It was recorded that in 2014 the Suffolk County recorded the highest value of age-adjusted opioid-related deaths of 21.6 per 100000 against the average of all the opioids related deaths in New York which was 7.2 per 100000 (Elliot Feld (MD Candidate).

There are many factors that contribute to the increase in heroin use in the long island and these include; the population size, its strategic place along the ocean where the opioids drugs can easily be sneaked in, the diversity of the people and many other contributing factors. Suffolk alone occupies two-thirds of Long Island with a population of 1.5 million. This is larger than that of several individual counties in New York State (Alaska, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Montana, Vermont, Delaware and Rhode). If you compare to other counties in New York, Suffolk County is more prosperous. Due to its large geographical position along the ocean Suffolk County tend to be on the verge of receiving more imports and this may be the reason why it is sometimes easy to sneak in the drugs illegally.

In Suffolk, there is a high percentage of Caucasian and this may try to clearly demonstrate the why there is a high rate of heroin-related deaths. According to the studies carried between 2000 and 2013, it showed that the most affected people with heroin-related overdose where the non-Hispanic white persons who were aged between 18-44. This statistics were recorded by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and were represented as shown in the graph below. This was also similar to the New York statistics in 2014 with the mortality rate of heroin-related cases for all the resident in New York is 6.5 per 100000, whereas the cases for non-Hispanic was higher with a rate of 9 per 100000.

Non-Hispanic white individuals have greater access the opioids related drugs and this is the reason why they may be predisposed with the issues related to opioids this always happens when they have been at least been treated in the emergency departments. Studies have revealed that both before and after the prescribing of opioid was increased on the 1990s; the white individuals tend to have an upper hand in receiving the opioids for pain management than the black individual or Hispanic people. This is by having 31, 23 and 24 percent respectively.

Heroin is a very harmful drug, its speed and more intense effects give it that harmful nature. If one, for instance, has a continued habit of using heroin in a very long period of time, it can create a devastation both mentally and physically hence affecting the body functioning. The drug can also culminate in the legal and social ramifications for those who use the drug. Individuals with who have a continued habit of using heroin are in a great danger of experiencing Excoriated skin from scratching, Weakness and sedation, Sleeping problems, Severe constipation, have a decrease in the sexual functioning, they will appear to be malnutrition and have poor appetite, decrease immune system hence increase the chances of being sick and lastly they will have a poor dental health characterized by gum swelling and damaged teeth. There are also some deadly risks involved in using heroin and these include; the irreversible impacts that can happen to the kidney and the liver due to the infectious diseases or damages. There are also instances where the brain can be highly affected because of lack of oxygen. An individual who regularly uses heroin may at times be affected by bacterial infections, abscesses and sometimes infections that affect the heart valves. Pregnant mothers with the habit of using heroin or addicted with heroin are at risk of having a miscarriage, they also place their children at high risk of conducting communicable diseases and also they place their children in a situation where they can be addicted to the drug right from birth. Lastly, it has been noted that individuals who are addicted to heroin sometimes experience many personal consequences such as; relationship turmoil, financial constraint, school trouble, employment trouble and legal penalties ("The Effects of Heroin Use - Drugabuse.Com").

The efforts have been made many years back so as to deal with this heroin epidemic. The first effort was made by the Nassau lawmakers in New York so as to stem the growing effects of heroin addiction. These lawmakers proposed tougher sentencing for all the drug dealers who were connected in one way or the other to the fetal overdose among the users. The official of Nassau then went on and started teaching the young people about the heroin, its dangers, the addiction and the inherent dangers that are involved in wanting to experiment on this highly addictive substance. They also did an expansion in the narcotics investigation and started the anti-drug campaigns at schools by starting curriculum in their local schools' systems. This was aimed at further discouraging the youths from any acts that could get them involved with heroin.

Conclusion

The heroin epidemic continues to grow in New York even after practices that aim at reducing them have been put at the forefront. A task force of policy advocates, parents, educators, healthcare providers and the New Yorkers was formed by Governor Cuomo in 2016 to develop a comprehensive plan that its target was to put this heroin epidemic crisis under control. In 2016 budget the officials allocated funds of over $1.4 billion to the Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse service to help fight this crisis. Governor Cuomo has plans to increase or to make the overdose antidotes to be more...