Chasing Heroin Essay

Chasing heroin is a documentary giving us insight information on the rapidly growing pandemic of addictions to drugs, notably heroin. The heroin epidemic is rising at an alarming rate and cities are struggling to find solutions. The CDC reports that 27,000 people die each year due to heroin overdoses. The jails are filled with offenders, that once released go out and use again continuing a cycle of insanity without producing answers. More youths experimenting with drugs are becoming addicted to meth and heroin and dying as a result. No one seemed to be paying any attention until it reached epidemic proportions, or as some has suggested, became "a white middle class problem" that surpassed the poor minority population. The documentary

Once it had been discovered that despite the claims of Purdue , of less than 1 % of becoming addicted, people were becoming addicted and dying at an alarming rate. More restrictions were in place to keep Doctors from prescribing them to patients who were not seriously in need of them. Doctors would cut off people after they had already become addicted, and it unfortunately led those people to turn to other means to get it, even if it meant stealing, falsifying documents or trying to buy it on the streets. If they could not get Oxycontin, they turned to other drugs that would produce the same effects, drugs like heroin and meth, it was easier and cheaper to

There are many reasons why people become addicted to drugs. It could have started as innocently as trying to get relief from pain. Does it seem reasonable to punish people after the pharmaceutical companies created the epidemic of pain killer addiction while lining their pockets with enormous revenues at the expense of human life? One cannot blame all addictions on the pharmaceutical companies however; they are a huge contributor to the epidemic. Some people reject the idea of giving Methadone and Suboxone as a way to combat the addiction, but clearly based on this documentary it is helping. Until they have a loved one addicted they will never understand that whatever it takes to get the addict clean is the goal to save lives instead of clinging on to old ideas that are not working. The documentary was heartbreaking and was difficult at times to watch. It does not make any sense that we have the answer at our fingertips but our refusal to get rid of the mindset of weakness in an addict and not one of illness that requires at times medication for the sever addict with no other options available to them, it just simply means that we are not fully educated about what addiction is and it Is time that we do. Dragging the afflicted to jail, making them inter a treatment program sounds fundamentally good, but it is not working. Treating with Methadone and Suboxone seem to be at least a better