One of the most addicting and dangerous substances in the world, one of the most hardcore drugs that can really cause serious collateral damage in the user's life is tearing through the streets of suburbia.
It seems as though just a few years ago if even that long, heroin wasn't thought of as a large problem especially in a community like mine. Small town, America mostly dealt with kids stealing their parent's liquor and maybe some joints being passed at parties. However, the scene seems to have changed.
What used to just be a few random users here and there has turned into a massive outbreak of the need for this hardcore drug and it's scaring a lot of people. Heroin, smack, dope, H. or whatever it is called is getting people addicted and killing them.
The need for quick highs and painkillers has progressively increased over the years. As pharmaceutical companies produce more and more addictive opioids to keep up with the demand being prescribed by doctors across the U.S. more people are getting addicted. Drugs like Oxycontin are being found in more and more medicine cabinets and as a result, an addiction problem in the U.S. has skyrocketed.
But prescription drugs on the black market are much more expensive than heroin and heroin in most cases can give a person much more of a high. It alleviates pain and produces euphoria in the user. And while it used to only be found in major cities within the U.S. it has spread as the problem with drug addiction has spread along with it.
Small towns that had once never seen the drug are now facing overdoses left and right. In New York State alone the number of opioid deaths rose 47% between 2010-2014 which is a staggering statistic. Some of these overdoses reaching young people, people in college and high school.
Heroin and addiction can affect people from all walks of life. Personally, I have seen it tear apart families from small farm towns living normal middle-class lives, to families of kids with parents that are CEO's and have all the monetary funds and lawyers you could possibly ever need at their dispense.
These dangerous drug addictions don't discriminate and can latch onto anyone who is willing to try them only once because that is all it takes and it's a scary and hard things to live through. In America with so much access to anything that will numb our pains and our regrets we all have things that help us get through them.
Americans need to realize that we all have an addiction problem. Whether it be food, social media, drugs or others we are all finding ways to numb ourselves rather than facing the emotions that come along with our life experiences.
