What is going on with heroin? Mr. Hoffman was stated to be rid of such addiction for 23 years.

February 3, 2014
Amy Corderoy
 
...The 46-year-old star of stage and screen (click here) had apparently battled with mental health and addiction issues since his university years. He checked himself into rehab last year after a relapse in his heroin addiction - 23 years after he kicked the habit....

I am wondering if funding has been cut for methadone clinics. I know addicts believe methadone is as bad as heroin, but, it is legal.

Methadone is also used with cancer patients that have reached their maximum does of morphine. It handles pain levels. If prescription drugs on the street are in decline, there needs to be alternatives offered to prevent death by heroin overdoes. Private physicians should be especially sensitive to their patients in regard to pain levels. No one wants folks to be addicted, but, pain needs a resolve and if the medical profession isn't delivering the answer, people will find it elsewhere.

Heroin is more of a monkey on the back of addicts than most other substances. Heroin addicts will tell anyone they can live with their addiction and frequently they do. Heroin is just one of those drugs that when it finds its way into a life it usually never leaves. People have lived their lives for decades being an addict. Those folks will state, methadone is worse than heroin.

More than a quarter of a million Americans (click here) are enrolled in methadone clinics, where they participate in “methadone replacement” or “methadone maintenance" to treat narcotic addictions to heroin or morphine, or prescription painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, OxyContin or Vicodin.
Unfortunately, many people on methadone programs can reach such high dosages that, when they want to get clean for good, they have difficulty finding a methadone detox facility that will accept anyone taking more than 80 or 100 mg a day. Also, many other people want off methadone but are discouraged by the extreme discomfort and added time of withdrawing from methadone.
In other words, many people feel "imprisoned" by methadone replacement programs....

But, sometimes there is just 'bad quality' drugs on the street. I hope coroners are paying attention to blood analysis for toxins as well as the drugs themselves. The heroin could be laced with something, even another more potent drug no one suspects will kill them.

By Lou Michel 
News Staff Reporter 
February 1, 2014 - 10:52 PM
February 1, 2014 at 11:42 PM

Three people died of separate heroin overdoses on the same day in Buffalo just two weeks ago. (click here) The deaths occurred on the West Side, East Side and downtown.

A South Buffalo drug addict was found dead from a suspected heroin overdose last weekend.

A week ago Friday, a couple checked into a Lancaster motel, and two days later they were found dead. Beside their bodies were packets believed to have contained heroin, possibly spiked with deadly additives, though it will not be known for sure until toxicology tests are completed.

“They had a history of drug use, and they may have taken a stronger dose or it may have been laced,” Lancaster Police Capt. William J. Karn Jr. said.
Another heroin user in Lancaster nearly died the same day the couple rented the room, but an emergency crew arrived in time and administered an antidote.

A day later, a suspected heroin user wasn’t as fortunate. He was found dead in an East Aurora home.

There is an epidemic of heroin and other opiate deaths occurring in Erie County, much of it traced to prescription pain medication.

Last year, 29 people died of heroin overdoses in the county, almost a third more than the year before. Overdose deaths from all types of opioids, ranging from prescription pain medications to street-bought heroin, claimed more than 106 lives in Erie County last year, 32 more than in 2009.

Heroin’s resurgence comes as New York and other states have made it tougher to get prescription painkillers. Addicts are having a harder time doctor-shopping to obtain multiple prescriptions. So they are turning to heroin – or drugs they think are heroin – obtained on the street....

When addiction is more than physical pain it is society's responsibility to end the problem.

Buffalo tends to run a higher than average unemployment rate. It also has a drug economy. Just thought I'd point that out. 

That is not an excuse, it means if there is something wrong with street drugs it will show up sometimes first, but more dramatically where they are prevalent. Statistics. Simple statistics.

Drug addiction, like prostitution, in the USA is taboo when it comes to having an open and healthy discussion about the practice. But, these are our people just the same. Prostitution directly relates to human trafficking and drug addiction speaks to societies inability to solve problems. These social issues don't simply stand alone as derelict behaviors, there are more to them than that. If the USA wants to solve their problems it has to be able to look at them and see a way forward.