Is the heroin crisis in America linked to the US occupation

[malaise]

of Afghanistan? Who is really making money from that heroin?

[NightWatcher]

1. I think it's linked to the over prescribing of opioid pain killers, leading to addiction

coupled with a lack of addiction treatment. When the prescriptions run out, the only outlet for their fix becomes street drugs.

[Warpy]

7. I think you need an education

In Boston in the late 708s and early 80s, 10,882 patients who had been given strong opiates in the hospital were followed up to find out how many became addicted to the drugs.

They found four. Out of nearly 11,000 people, only four went looking for the drugs when they got home.

Those are damned good odds and your post is an ignorant one. It just doesn't happen that way.

[NightWatcher]

9. I think you need educating (sources cited)

I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I've heard this mentioned many times in many places.



http://jama.jamanetwork.com/mobile/article.aspx?articleid=1886185

Driven by Prescription Drug Abuse, Heroin Use Increases Among Suburban and Rural Whites




http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/29/health/gupta-unintended-consequences/

Why painkiller addicts turn to heroin




http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/investigations/2014/05/16/heroin-surges-kentucky-cracks-pain-pills/9123285/

Heroin surges as Kentucky cracks down on pain pills

[Warpy]

11. I am not impressed by propaganda.

I don't care who publishes it. It doesn't even say "patients who were prescribed opiods" it says "patients with a history of abusing prescription painkillers."

"Prescription pain killers" can come from many sources including mail order pill mills and organized crime putting out lookalike pills. It doesn't mean the person has ever had a legitimate prescription. It's also long been known that upper class drug abusers will start out on legally or (more usually) illegally obtained prescription opiates, it's one way they deny to themselves that they're drug abusers.

You made it sound that people in the hospital and taking opiates for legitimate resons were at risk for becoming addicts. You are 100% wrong. However, when you have that major surgery of your own, feel free to try to tough it out on Tylenol. I dare you.

Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.

Watch the video.

[phylny]

14. Two close friends have sons who were

addicted to heroin. Both started after becoming dependent on prescribed drugs.

[Socal31]

2. It's a perfect storm.

The initial easy prescription for opioid painkillers, followed by the subsequent crackdown, has caused an extreme demand for street replacements.

The US policy of appeasing rural Afghan farmers and allowing them to grow poppy, and the acute need for the Afghan and Paki Taliban for funding from said poppy, has allowed consecutive bumper crops. This has flooded the world with cheap and pure herion and it's derivatives.

US conpiracy? No. Another failure to project the workdwide consequences of a seemingly local action by the US.mil? Absolutely.

[Eleanors38]

3. Opium production was protected andnhanced since at least the Vietnam era.

Opium production (and consequential Heroin® production) is not touched. That is orthodoxy.

Google (variously, CIA, Heroin, Opa Locka Airport).

"The soul of America is in D.C. The bowels are in Miami."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. And a related question, what clandestine operations is it funding?

[malaise]

10. Good question

[JonathanRackham]

5. Locally the opioid problem is from prescription drugs.

Kids steal them from parents and either sell or use them. Multiple local overdoses and three deaths this year alone amongst the high school kids.

The world has changed since I was a kid. Back then we had underage beer parties and the occasional joint, that was considered hard core.

[Warpy]

8. Nobody with access to pure pharmaceutical drugs will risk street drugs

Unfortunately, there are a lot of look alike pills out there. That's why so many are starting to OD in clusters, dealers are substituting fentanyl for oxycodone and don't realize just how much more powerful the fentanyl is.

[Wounded Bear]

6. It does make it easier for the CIA to procure and bring in....

Oh, hi, Agent Mik....

[Albertoo]

12. The US occupation of Afghanistan??

In other, earlier times, it's a figure of speech I would have expected from the Pravda.

Which brings me to wonder what your general opinion of the US is?


Could you please detail why you believe the US is currently 'occupying' Afghanistan?

IF you manage to demonstrate that, THEN the US is a country with superpowers:
the military rule of thumb is that you need around 1% of the population in occupying troops to hold a place. So, unless there are 320,000 US troops in Afghanistan, the US is realizing a world record by managing to 'occupy' Afghanistan with far less.

Anyway, the troops present in Afghanistan are there are part of a UN effort, so I suppose it would make it the United Nations 'occupying' one of its members. Not even the Pravda would have tried to suggest that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Yes. Republicans clueless about nation-building (they weren't here 1776) so they bungled Afghanistan

Bush was so eager to get to his real objective -- one-upping his father in Iraq -- that he dropped the ball in Afghanistan to go chase one in Iraq, which he bungled too; hence ISIS = ISIL = Daesh.