Monday, the White House introduced a $5 million dollar program aimed at curbing heroine use and trafficking. This is in response to the spike in heroine overdose deaths, which have nearly quadrupled in the last decade, and the dramatic increase in use of the drug across all socioeconomic, gender, race and age groups.
The new program hopes to pair law enforcement with public health coordinators to emphasize treatment as an alternative to straight incarceration, noting that between 2007 and 2014, heroin arrests by the Drug Enforcement Administration nearly doubled, surpassing marijuana arrests for the first time. A study by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, found that methadone treatment combined with relatively short-term incarceration typically resulted in inmates seeking further treatment and intervention upon release.
So far, there are 27 federally programs running across the country gathering data on heroine use and trafficking patterns, determining where heroin is coming from, how and where it is being laced with deadly additives, and who is distributing it to street-level dealers. The director of the National Drug Control Policy notes that the use of heroine and prescription opiate medication across the nation has become a serious public health and safety issue and immediate action will be taken.
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Source: The Atlantic:“The Heroin Statistics That Spooked the White House”, by Marina Koren, accessed August 20, 2015.
