Chasing the Dragon: this country's heroin epidemic

Yeah, there are two parts to rehab. There is the initial, lock 'em up without access to their drug of choice for 28 days (or whatever). Then there is the follow up to try to keep the addict clean, with counseling, twelve step groups, and the like. The medical corporations have twigged that there is a lot of insurance money out there for the first phase, so they are buying up rehabs, particularly chains of such clinics. There is not much money in the ongoing care after that, and that's the part that is hard to find and not well supported. Once their inpatient benefit is exhausted they boot the addict back onto the street.

Medicare/Medicaid and the insurance companies will get eventually get around to putting the clamps on this, but for now it is the high profit medical scheme of choice.

 

It'll come down to which has the bigger wallet: Big Rehab or Big Prisons.

 

I'm curious why the opioid problem as a news story crested in the last few years. Oxy was a big story when it came out about a decade ago after people realized they could crush it to destroy the delayed release element of the pill. Since then pill mills have been consistently in the news. Before that there was a local story about a neighborhood with a heroin problem and there would be posted warnings about bad heroin.

A local public radio station did a series on opioid addiction about a yesr ago and one thing I found interesting is a doctor suggested that 12 steps might not be effective in treating opioid addiction because it is different from alcohol addiction. It's scary to think that it isn't known how to help people.

 

Husband of my cousin went to some Bible-based rehab "farm" for a year. I think at least six guys there with him overdosed within a week or two after leaving. Weird place, since none of the "clients" were allowed to be on any mental-health medication.

Noticed that an awful lot of the "clients" celebrate leaving by heading to a bar. Not a fan of opioids, myself, as they don't seem to work for me whenever I was prescribed any, but it must be a hell of a drug.

 

It got into the white neighborhoods.

 

Meth wasn't such a big deal for a while since the perception was it mainly affected white trash. Once it hits the 'burbs, it becomes a national health crisis.

You still see meth jokes on TV, but can't joke about heroin.

 

White neighborhoods outside of Appalachia. Hillbilly heroin has been a thing for a while.

 

True. More specifically, once it hit white suburbs.

 

Rolling Stone did a big story on a heroin overdose epidemic in Plano, Texas in 1999. It was about the same time that Mark Tuinei OD'd there. This isn't new.

 

Heroin makes no sense to me but it has a hold on people.

I know two guys here in town who each have lost sons to heroin overdoses in the past two years. They're a little older than I am and their boys were 19 and 22. Good families. Affluent. One got hooked in college. The other just out of boredom. It's fucking awful.

 

Unless you're a heroin addict, that's pretty fucking obvious.