Crackdown on Prescriptions = Heroin Abuse Skyrockets

As with all consequences of hysterical over-reactions to solvable problems, this was completely predictable and predicted.

Chris Kenning at the Courier:

Wes Oetinger’s drug abuse started in high school, with prescription pain pills from a friend’s medicine cabinet. It got worse when a motorcycle accident left him with a ready supply of opiate painkillers.

And it finally ended last April in a Louisville jail cell, with the 27-year-old fighting through withdrawal, writhing in pain, sweat and cramps from his use of heroin, a notorious drug Oetinger “was sure I’d never do.”



Yet his story is an increasingly common one in Louisville, where police say the use of heroin — a once rare but highly addictive drug — is surging.


Amid a medical and law enforcement crackdown on opiate prescription pill abuse, rising street prices and manufacturer reformulations that make pain pills harder to abuse, addicts are increasingly turning to heroin —cheaper, easier to obtain and extremely potent, police and drug treatment officials say.

Unfortunately, the article hits all the prohibitionist G-spots: crazed addicts shooting up on the highway, breaking into homes, impervious to treatment, threatening civilization. Substitute "crack" for "heroin" and it's the same hysteria from the '80s - an excuse to imprison millions of poor people and minorities instead of  putting a tiny fraction of law enforcement and incarceration costs into effective treatment.

Meanwhile, non-addicts in chronic pain are going without relief because the prescription hysteria means even asking your physician for opiates is the next thing to a crime.