In the past few years, heroin-related deaths have jumped 39 percent and unlike the heroin epidemic of the 1970s, which decimated urban communities, this latest wave of heroin abuse is happening in the small, rural towns of middle America. Many of these towns become hubs of heroin addiction due to their locations off major highways. These highways bring heroin from major cities, like New York City and Boston, to dozens of towns up and down the East Coast.

Easy access for drug mules is only part of the reason why these formerly unlikely addicts are emerging across the United States. According to an article in The New York Times, 75 precent of heroin addicts were previously using prescription painkillers. When people who become addicted to their pain medications lose their prescription or access to the powerful prescription drugs, many turn to heroin to achieve similar highs. In fact, people who are taking prescription pain medication are 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin than people who are not.

This increased heroin use also has global effects. In Mexico last year, there was a 50 percent increase in opium production, responding to the increased demand among a whole new breed of drug addicts. As demand for drugs like heroin increases, the serious cartel problems that plague Mexico are likely to continue and possibly get worse.

The local response to this latest epidemic differs from the criminal practices that were enforced during the earlier heroin epidemic in the 1970s. Many officials and citizens of these small towns are banding together and educating young people about the very real dangers of drug addiction. Hopefully, treating this outbreak as a public health problem rather than a criminal problem will enable current addicts to seek out the treatment they need, while also preventing possible future addicts from making similar mistakes.