Drinking issue at Dartmouth!

mini
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:47:32 +0000

In my state, heroin use is growing massively among 18-24 year olds, and treatment admissions for heroin use among this age cohort are at an all-time high, as are treatment admissions for those under age 18. It is not common in the way alcohol is, and data on use (as opposed to those seeking treatment) have wide standard deviations (people don’t like to answer in the affirmative when asked about shooting up any drug.) Patterns of heroin use may differ in different parts of the country - black tar heroin on the west coast is very inexpensive (and mostly comes from Mexico); white China heroin available elsewhere is more expensive and comes from Afghanistan. However, white China heroin is also snorted, as well as injected, so the barrier to heroin use (injection) is not there.

As states such as ours clamp down heavily on prescription opiate supply, and as drugs such as OxyContin are reformulated to prevent time release properties from being defeated, heroin (which is very much cheaper) becomes much more popular.

Having said that, in aggregate alcohol remains a far more dangerous drug.