TORONTO STAR/STEVE RUSSELL/GETTY IMAGES
HOOKED
money to buy drugs. Now 26 and
living at a substance abuse treatment center, she says she’s all too
aware that her story isn’t unique.
Between 1996 and 2011, the
number of people who ended up
in substance abuse treatment
centers in Suffolk County, where
Arielle lives, as a result of heroin
jumped 425 percent, according
to a 2012 special grand jury report from the county’s Supreme
Court. During the same period,
the number of people who landed
in substance abuse treatment for
opioid pill use spiked 1,136 percent, the report found.
Long Island is one of many areas of the country where heroin
addiction is reaching harrowing
levels, according to Gregory Bunt,
HUFFINGTON
03.09.14
the medical director at Daytop Village, a New York-based substance
abuse treatment center. The crisis
is getting renewed attention after
actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman
died in January from an apparent
heroin overdose. The rise in heroin
use mirrors a decade-long spike
in abuse of prescription opioids —
painkillers that are a medical cousin to heroin, but are legal as long
as they’re prescribed by a doctor.
In recent years, more prescription drug abusers have started
turning to heroin for a cheaper
high as the price of pills skyrockets on the black market, Bunt
said. Two factors have contributed to the cost increase: opioid
addiction boosting demand and
doctors becoming more cautious
about prescribing opioids, decreasing supply, Bunt said.
Another reason for the price in-
By 2003,
nearly half of
the doctors
prescribing
OxyContin
were
primary care
physicians.