The drugs issue is a major problem in Australia. A simple solution cannot be found to solve this great problem because there are so many decisions, thoughts and sacrifices that need to be made. All sides of the issue must be considered when making such a large decision. To find a solution, several tests, meetings, interviews and research need to be made, to name a few. Extreme care is needed when challenging such major issues, all aspects of the problem need to be considered. Zajdow describes drug abuse as being a social, legal, health, economic and ethical issue (1999, p.44). This great problem therefore involves not only one department, but also many other departments. These include the police, who offer their power and resources, Justice, who has the resources for jail, Health, which offers treatment programs, and Education which provides drug education to the community. Without these departments, the issue would be too complicated for the Government to solve on their own. However, as indicated by Knowles, these departments were bidding for more funds to strengthen the resources they provide (2000, p.1). The drugs issue as a social concern: There are an estimated 25,000 heroin users in Victoria (Hodder, p.10). This is a very large amount of people on drugs, in the last 10 years it has been shown to increase and therefore the drug issue is becoming a major problem to all the people in Victoria. Some people argue that the drug users aren’t the heroin victims. One writer notes, 'The parents of the user who steals from them, abuses them, physically, emotionally and mentally, the siblings who suffer the loss of care and love but who also get abused and used by the user, the kids of the user who learn that the parent's desire for smack is greater than the desire to be a parent,' are the real heroin victims (Fitzgerald, 2000). This problem therefore effects not only the user but the society living around them as well. The drugs issue as a legal problem: The Government needs to draw the line somewhere. In Sweden the Government was giving out free heroin, in order to keep the drugs free from being impure. However, Margaret McKay (2001) declares that if we follow in same steps, soon we will be giving out not only free heroin, but also other illegal substances as well. It will then lead to problems with other drugs as well.
“The root cause is a vast, multi-layered incommensurability between the institutions of globalized, market driven society and the basic psychological, social and spiritual needs of human beings” (229). Something that is only briefly recognised in public discussion. The normal methods of intervention are enormously expensive with minimal effects. “Illegal drug business and legal pharmaceutical industries” (229) are financially benefiting from the damaging drugs people use. During a time that is almost complete “domination of Canadian thought by the logic of globalization, it is difficult” (229) to even to come up with a good way of improving dislocation. Dodging these tough realities has created a deadlock and caused us to infinitely endure feeble interventions and ridiculous “war on drugs”
The documentary states that over 27,000 deaths a year are due to overdose from heroin and other opioids. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015 prescription pain relievers account for 20,101 overdose deaths, and 12,990 overdose deaths are related to heroin (Rudd et al., 2010-2015). The documentary’s investigation gives the history of how the heroin epidemic started, with a great focus on the hospice movement. We are presented with the idea that once someone is addicted to painkillers, the difficulty in obtaining the drug over a long period of time becomes too expensive and too difficult. This often leads people to use heroin. This idea is true as a 2014 survey found that 94% of respondents who were being treated for opioid addiction said they chose to use heroin because prescription opioids were “more expensive and harder to obtain (Cicero et al., 2014).” Four in five heroin users actually started out using prescription painkillers (Johns, 2013). This correlation between heroin and prescription painkiller use supports the idea presented in the documentary that “prescription opiates are heroin prep school.”
We are introduced to the story of Matt Schoonover, a young man who had recently obtained his masters degree from Yale. He had grown up “attending a Christian private school, and a prominent church” (2). Matt had begun abusing pills, though he was originally prescribed them by a doctor. Even after undergoing detoxification and then rehab, Matt could not curb his addiction. “Unable to afford street Oxycontin, Matt switched to black tar heroin, brought in from Mexico” (3). We are told how this is unfortunately quite common. People who are prescribed pills often end up abusing them; and once they can no longer afford the high prices of OxyContin they switch to black tar heroin. This transition is often what leads to overdoses, as black tar heroin is extremely deadly and overdoses like Matt’s are common. This is just one story out of tens of thousands of similar stories that all have the same ending. The opiate crisis is a problem that few recognize because it crept up on a majority of Americans. Young people throughout the nation were not using drugs in public, but privately in their own
In Australia the Government uses three methods to tackle drugs; Demand reduction, supply reduction and harm minimization. Needle and syringe programs are under harm minimization category. Supply reduction is focused on drug dealers and drug makers and is brought about by law enforcement. In the Demand reduction method it is tried to decrease the number of people taking drugs through anti-drug advertisements and campaigns, legislation, rehabilitation centers. On the other hand harm minimization recognizes the fact that drugs can never be eradicated fro...
Frequently, heroin addiction becomes a physiological dependence on the drug, leaving users constantly in need for more when coming off. This is refer to as ‘dopesick’ to many of the users in the drug world. In Edgewater the need for heroin was a never ending cycle. Daily life was based on where and how to get the next fix. Psychical sickness such as when frank and Carter explain it, bone aches, vomiting, uncontrollable bowel movements, the feeling of spiders crawling through your bones, and the worst part is the anxiety (Bourgois and Schonberg, 81-82).While, the withdraw symptoms may not kill a person they are horrible to suffer through. With the chronic heroin use and the unsanitary living conditions, the homeless also face ailments such as, “Abscesses, skin rashes, cuts, bruises, broken bones, flues, colds, opiate withdrawals, and the potential for violent assault” (Bourgois and Schonberg, 5). When these cases become extreme they can end them up in the hospital or worse, due to the medical system the homeless postpone getting it looked at and will sub come to, death. The issue that Bourgois and Schonberg expose is the deep stigma in the structures of our medical
In 2016 Americans are turning to heroin to deal with their despair, pain and turmoil in their lives, subsequently causing an opiate epidemic. This point is further evidenced by the following statement
A common recreational drug that is illegally dealt is Heroin. To many this drug is known by a few slang/street names, some being; smack, brown stone and junk (Tracy, 2012). Heroin is a highly addictive opiate that caused many different issues regarding physical and mental health. It can be consumed in 3 different ways: snorting, injecting and smoking. The original purpose of heroin is far different then the purpose that it is used for today in society. In 1874, heroin was first produced from morphine and 24 years later began its journey in the field of medicine to help morphine addicted patients (Scott, 1998). After use of the medicine it became present that the drug was just as addictive as morphine and was in turn creating patients to become addicted to the new drug. In 1902, doctors ceased the use of heroin in the medical field and a few years following, 8 years later, the first case of a heroin addict was admitted to a hospital for treatment (Scott, 1998). The drug is no longer used for a medical purposes but is still present in the legal drug selling market. Many countries have stiff penalties if caught in possession of or are selling heroin, because this drug is listed as a Class A drug (“Opium, Morphine, Heroin”, n.d.).
The perspectives in these pieces of writings are alike in a variety of ways. “Nearly 500,000 Americans are now using heroin, up from 161,000 in 2007. Deaths caused by heroin overdoses more than tripled in four
If more people were aware of the dangers of heroin use, such as using while pregnant, while on prescribed medications, with dirty needles, or even possible death, more people would be likely to not partake in the use of the drug.
Crime does in fact need to be addressed in this nation and especially drug related crimes. Statistics by the Office of National Drug Control Policy say that the drug arrests that were made in 1999 alone total over 1.5 million (Schmidt 1). In 2002 the estimated cost of ...
The social component of SUD is a major player in the holistic approach to healing. Relating to the answers of location as opposed to reason or accessibility it asks “where does the addictive activity take place and where is the impact felt?” (Van Wormer and Davis 12). This aspect is multi-faceted. The impact is not necessarily felt in the same place that the activity takes place. The social component may include the peers that are a part of the world of addiction, the family that feels the impact at home, or the employer that loses productivity, or the friends that hope the best for a person they once knew well, but now no longer recognize. In a series of articles published for the Bureau Co. Republican in spring of 2016 titled “Heroin
America has a problem with drugs. In order to understand the problem, we first need to understand what is considered a drug. It is “any ingestible substance that has a noticeable effect on the mind or body”. (Schmalleger, 2011) Drugs are used for medicinal as well as recreational purposes. Unfortunately both types of drugs have played a role in American culture.
This video and article was related to the epidemic of heroin among women and the middle class in the United States. This was a very powerful article and video it opened my eyes to the growing problem of opiate use as a gateway drug. It explained how many people are getting addicted to prescription painkillers and moving on to heroin as a replacement drug. In addition, it explained that this addiction does not discriminate it affects people of all walks of life from all cultures, genders, and ages. According to the article, “We see addiction in all walks of life, from 60-year-olds to teenagers, in people of all races, in men and women" (Szabo, 2015).
Drug abuse is a widespread issue in the United States. Drugs can be abused in an assortment of various courses by individuals from each stroll of life. The greater part of us have been influenced by drug abuse either specifically or in a roundabout way. Drug abusers hurt themselves, and additionally their families and groups. Drug abuse takes a huge toll on our general public at numerous levels. The expense of drug abuse on our general public is galactic, monetarily as well as actually, inwardly, socially and professionally. Numerous individuals abuse drugs to manage ordinary life. Drug abuse causes different issues for nations and groups. Two noteworthy issues are medicinal impacts and wrongdoing. The medicinal and mental impacts are extremely
America’s modern “war on drugs” was officially kicked off in 1971 during a press conference with president Nixon. Among other things, Nixon declared drugs to be America’s number one enemy and the phrase the “war on drugs” was born. The size and presence of federal drug control agencies dramatically increased during Nixon’s presidency. It would also prove to be the only time in our country’s history of fighting drug use that the bulk of the federal funding for this initiative was spent on demand reduction and treatment-based approaches rather than on punitive and supply control methods (Thirty). Both prior to and since this period, America’s drug policies have always taken a decidedly different course. In recent years such policies have come