Heroin is on the rise, not only in the local community but in America period. The rise is seen in various vast of age groups, and social standpoints. The use of heroin is affecting more than just the individual users. So, what is this now “it drug,” and why is it now covering more headlines in the local and country level news?

Heroin is an opioid drug that is made from morphine. It used to legally come to America around 1887 as amphetamine. The form of Morphine is a natural substance extracted from Asian opium poppy flower. The substance heroin on the streets can be seen in many forms, such as a white or brown powder, or black substance known as black tar.

The biggest concern, however, is not what heroin is, but why is it coming back and claiming many lives now.

For this drug to be reaching, children as young as 12 years old, it makes you wonder how this drug is beginning to get in the hands of children this young.

There has been a lot of talk about that “prescription opioid and narcotics,” being the gateway drug into heroin use. Is this fact, a reflection of society? How is that such young and old are getting easily addicted to these drugs? Is this because in the society we live in it’s easier to access these drugs that are easily prescribed to you as “medication?” The narcotic and opioid medication that ends up making people dependent on it to function, this medication becomes an opening of wanting another high. When the high of the medications such as Vicodin, Percocet, oxycodone, don’t work anymore, it leads to wanting a high off other drugs. This fact increases when you are looking at the poor communities, who have a more likely chance of being addicts to other drugs. There is also a large percent of addicts in the poor community that uses more than one thing to get high on, to escape the reality of the world. They go and get prescribed these prescriptions of narcotics, only to run out because the prescribers are only prescribing so much medication. The emphasis that is hard to understand is why people that are known addicts still get prescribed a highly addictive medication, under the prescriber’s knowledge of previous addictions. This only leads to another addiction added to addictions the may already have. Once, you become an addict, with heroin you lose everything, including your mindset, and the majority of the time your life. There are even a lot of addicts that start to steal, prostitute, and con to supply their habits

The gut of the problem is the fact that this is a bigger issue other than just addicts. This heroin epidemic is affecting the children, home and the community. The saddest part of this viscous cycle is the children that suffer. The children because of their parent’s addiction, whether on heroin or other drugs, are the ones with broken households. The children are the ones suffering from emotional, physical, psychological, abuse. The children are the ones suffering not learning the proper way or the ones being left at home alone. The children are the ones who have no one to properly love and nurture them.

Those children are the ones who can end up dead or in jail when they grow up because of the lack of love and care from their parents as a child. Children who grow up with addicts are also more likely to become addicts themselves. Not only are children being influenced if their parent is addicted to heroin, there is now an increase in young kids being addicted themselves. The changes in behavior or symptoms you should look for are dry mouth, skin looks flush, nod off suddenly, itching and vomiting.

The last known numbers were from 2011 where 244 fatal overdose deaths occurred in Missouri alone, as well as more than 4,000 Missourians treated for their addictions to heroin. This number may have increased within this last five years.

This affects more than just the users and their families. It also affects you, it affects you because the increase in taxes, increases in prisons or deaths, the increase in children being exposed to drugs, can affect the outcome of the community in which we live. What if this was someone that you knew or loved?

We as a community should make the first step to try to come together to at least help the children. The children are the ones that are innocent. They are the ones that only grow up to do the things that they know or the people that have done something to affect their lives.

Let's stop being afraid to lend a helping hand, and to set an example.

There has been a decline in volunteering, as well as positive events hosted for the poor or really the community in general. The community really should come together to start to invest in our community. You can start by volunteering with a child who needs positive support in their lives. These children have the potential to be great, some of them just end up not being because no one intervenes, and shows them something different in the beginning stages of their lives. No one takes the time to believe, love, and invest in them. You can volunteer at places such as boys and girls club, big brothers & big sisters, local Columbia public schools, local daycares. Even if it is just an hour a week, that can mean the world to someone who doesn’t get that.