Heroin Addictions

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Ring, Ring, Ring… every time I hear that sound in the middle of the night, I am terrified to answer my phone; I am waiting for the call where someone says “Andy has died from an overdose.” Andy is my stepbrother, he has been battling his heroin addiction since we were fifteen years old, and I have seen firsthand how this disease can rip a family apart. Andy’s addiction has inflicted such tremendous stress and hurt on my parents and watching them try to help him recover from this addiction is heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking because I am powerless to help heal our family; I would not wish this pain on my worst enemy, because my stepbrother’s addiction has been one of the greatest trials of my own life.
Heroin has become one of the leading drugs in the world, Andy has been in and out of rehab facilities for as long as I can remember, and he has been prescribed countless drugs to help treat his opioid addiction yet nothing has worked. His addiction is bigger than him; heroin has consumed his life and now makes choices for him. His latest attempt at regaining control of his life was aided with a new medication called buprenorphine, a cutting-edge version of methadone that supposedly is less addictive and more operative than other opioids. Regrettably, yet again, he failed to re-claim control, in particular cases buprenorphine has been proven to assist opioid addicts, however in countless other cases, including Andy, buprenorphine only replaced one addiction for another. Due to the fact that buprenorphine can create a new addiction in itself demonstrates the abuse liability of the drug itself, its progressive dependency, and proven parallel to methadone establishes enough evidence to ban the drug entirely. The past seven years of m...

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... 30 Nov. 2013.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. "The Facts about BUPRENORPHINE." SAMHSA. N.p., 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

Taylor D, Paton C, Kerwin R. The Maudsley prescribing Guidelines. 9th ed. London: Informa Healthcare; 2007.
US Department of Justice. "Buprenorphine: Potential for Abuse." National Drug Intelligence Center. N.p., Sept. 2004. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. .

Washington, Tabitha, and Gilbert J. Fanciullo. "Buprenorphine: Side Effects and Tolerability." Handbook of Methadone Prescribing and Buprenorphine Therapy. N.p., 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

Winstock AR, Lea T, Sheridan J. Prevalence of diversion and injection of methadone and buprenorphine among clients receiving opioid treatment at community pharmacies in New South Wales, Australia. Int J Drug Policy. 2008;19:450–8.

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