<p>Heroin is different now. It had a stigma in the 70’s and 80’s. People did everything but Heroin. That’s gone, now…</p>
<p>@actingmt Heroin is still very stigmatized among teens and only meth is perceived as being more dangerous for one time use* (not surprising given the horrifying “Meth, not even once” ads). Its increasing use is almost entirely because it’s become much cheaper and more desirable due to the widespread use and abuse of prescription opiates. </p>
<p>Source: Monitoring the Future Survey <a href=“http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/13data/13drtbl8.pdf”>http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/13data/13drtbl8.pdf</a></p>
<p>socalmom, I don tknow a single heroin addict, to my knowledge. I know many people who smoke pot. This Reefer Madness nonsense does not help. At all.</p>
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Eh…I wouldn’t be too sure about that.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know about the reliability of druggie surveys; but the celebrity crowds seems to be doing Heroin in pretty large numbers these days. And, that’s not a "cheaper’ thing either because they have plenty of money. I do hope you are, right though whenhen.</p>
<p>Consolation, congratulations on not knowing any addicts.<br>
Heroin is still killing kids despite your assertions that everyone you know is too smart to become addicted to dangerous drugs,
The three kids I know who have died of heroin overdoses in the last few years were all smart well-off kids who had involved parents and good social support.
The teen brain is different than the adult brain. Addiction happens much faster in teen brains and despite the ridicule that the term “gateway drug” generates, kids who start with one substance of abuse are more likely to add them on.<br>
Google Dr Susan Tapart and her research on teen brains.</p>
<p>“socalmom, I don tknow a single heroin addict, to my knowledge. I know many people who smoke pot. This Reefer Madness nonsense does not help. At all.”</p>
<p>If you don’t know a single heroin addict, you cannot know how they came about their addiction, right? </p>
<p>I do not oppose marijuana use. I realize it has many benefits. My response was to EPTR’s post: “I also agree that energy should be put into helping prevent young people from trying dangerous drugs for the first time. Once they start it is so much harder to deal with the problem.” </p>
<p>Do you advocate teens (and younger) using marijuana, Consolation? </p>
<p>Actingmt, the Monitoring the Future survey, though it might be off by a few percentage points, is still one of the best surveys we have about long term use and attitudes regarding various drugs. Other data points (OD deaths among the surveyed age groups by year, to name but one example) further support the survey’s accuracy. Additionally, Phillip Seymore Hoffman was a recovering heroin addict. I’m not sure we can extrapolate much from his death except that addicts are always in recovery. You might find this article interesting: <a href=“Hoffman and the Terrible Heroin Deaths in the Shadows - The Atlantic”>Hoffman and the Terrible Heroin Deaths in the Shadows - The Atlantic; It links the rise of heroin consumption with the mass prescribing of pills. </p>
<p>I will also encourage parents on this forum to talk to their teens about just how dangerous prescription opiates are. Most high schoolers recognize that heroin is not something to mess around with. Far fewer understand just how risky off label use of pills can be. </p>
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Yes. Yes. </p>
<p>Thanks. I understand the link to opiates. My only point was for whatever reason heroin does not seem to be the same hardcore fringy bona-fide loser drug that it used to be. That’s worrisome. But, if I’m wrong, great. </p>
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<p>Prescription opiates are so commonly prescribed that they might as well be gateways to themselves. I would guess that they are very overprescribed, leading to excess supplies that feed addictions.</p>
<p>"My response was to EPTR’s post: “I also agree that energy should be put into helping prevent young people from trying dangerous drugs for the first time. Once they start it is so much harder to deal with the problem.”</p>
<p>Energy has been spent in this way and it hasn’t been particularly effective. When my kid was in school there were lots of discussions about drugs. Teachers and even the police didn’t know all the types of stuff that was circulating through the schools. My kid still did drugs - every kind in existence and some that weren’t until he created them.</p>
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<p>How many of them tried alcohol or tobacco before their first hit of marijuana?</p>
<p>I know a handful of heroin addicts. I know many, many, MANY marijuana users (come to think of it, I can guarantee I know more users than non-users).
To say that marijuana leads to heroin is about as accurate as saying caffeine leads to heroin. Actually, probably less so. They are completely different in terms of what they do to a person. </p>
<p>I still do not know a single person who ever went to rehab for marijuana. Or who OD’d from it either, either. </p>
<p>I know many who have gone for alcohol, crack, heroin. </p>
<p>None of them started with weed and moved onto those items, either. </p>
<p>My friend’s kid died of a heroin overdose. </p>
<p>I’m very sorry, SLS. When I was a freshman or sophomore in college, a man across the street from us passed away from a heroin overdose. He was only a few years older than me and his dad and my dad graduated from high school together. I’d only met him a few times.
His mom found him with the needle still in his arm. </p>
<p>No one has ever died of ODing on weed. I don’t even think it’s possible to OD on weed.
I’d much rather have my friends smoking than drinking. </p>
<p>Consolation wrote: Give me a break. I have known literally hundreds of people who smoke pot, and never–to my knowledge–a single heroin addict.</p>
<p>I do. A young woman I know was a heroin addict. She’s in recovery now. One day we were having a heart-to-heart and I asked her, point blank, how it happened. She told me, that in her opinion, for her, it started with pot. That pot, in high school, was absolutely her gateway drug. She’s been struggling for years – and is currently clean, working, and building a life – but it’s been a long hard haul for her.</p>
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And ther are those whomight argue that pain management is often poorly done because of the underprescribing of adequate pain Rx.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry, but you are turning this around. I was responding to a statement to the effect that marijuana use almost inevitably leads to heroin use. My point is that I know/have known hundreds of pot smokers, and to my knowledge not a single one ever became a heroin addict. </p>
<p>Is that so difficult to comprehend?</p>
<p>And I don’t “advocate” that teens–or anyone else–use ANY substances.</p>
<p>I can absolutely see how people become addicted to prescription pills. When I was in my early 20s, I was prescribed percodan after a complicated wisdom tooth removal. Luckily it was a very small prescription, because I could have become an addict in a flash. It made me feel warm and good all over, and it also made me throw up. But I didn’t care. It was that good. I’ve always figured that heroin must make you feel wonderful, for people to take the risk of almost certain addiction. No thanks, no way.</p>
<p>A few years ago I had a fairly severe chronic pain situation that lasted a few months. I had to take hydrocodone daily in order to sleep at all. When the situation was eventually resolved–let’s hear it for accupuncture!–I didn’t have the slightest temptation to take any more of it. There’s a bottle with a few pills in it sitting in a cabinet in the house. I can assure you that would NEVER have happened with percodan.</p>
<p>It is not something I thought I could ever say - I know a person who died of heroin. Not something I thought happened much in my neck of the woods. I think it has become more popular to try, and thse that do try it, well…it is a one way ticket. </p>
<p>I know someone else who got addicted as a teen and it has taken years for him to move on to the next stageof his life. </p>
<p>Meth is much more popular. A family friend lost hs wife to it. </p>