Much of the trend is being driven by heroin, a highly addictive, illegal drug that, like opium and morphine, is derived from the seed pod of certain poppy plants. Once the go-to drug for seedy inner-city junkies, heroin continues to reach an ever-wider audience. It is more popular among wealthy people and women than it was in the past. Numerous celebrities, recently Philip Seymour Hoffman, have died with the drug in their systems. Most users today live outside urban centers. 3 They are increasingly young and white. The problem is so widespread that in his State of the Union address President Obama called on Congress to address the heroin scourge.
Why has the heroin problem become so serious? Experts attribute it to the law of unintended consequences. In the 1980s, doctors began to prescribe opioids with wild abandon. By 2004, a total of 2.4 million people were using prescription painkillers. Law enforcement, policymakers, and even the drug companies began to take note. Purdue Pharma, OxyContin’s manufacturer, reconfigured its drug so it could not be snorted. In 2014, Vicodin and other hydrocodone-based drugs joined the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) list of Schedule II drugs, prompting tighter regulations. Drug cartels saw this as an opportunity and starting moving huge volumes of heroin into the United States. Heroin seizures at the Mexican border have increased more than fivefold in recent years.
4 Heroin is also exceptionally cheap. Legally purchased opiate pain medications cost on the order of $1 per milligram for the uninsured; one pill costs about $60. By contrast, a single dose of heroin can cost between $5 and $10, less than a pack of cigarettes or a 6-pack of beer. Prices do vary by region, but they remain quite low across the board. The law of supply and demand explains the affordable pricing; the market is awash with cheap heroin from Mexico. And with marijuana decriminalization catching on in the United States, opium poppies are becoming more profitable to grow than cannabis. 5 This combined with the price and relative difficulty of securing prescription pills further fuels America’s heroin addiction.
Illegal drug abuse is but one of the many difficult problems our justice system confronts on a daily basis. Unfortunately, crime in America is a constantly moving target, not unlike a game of whack-a-mole. One problem rears its head, is beat down to some extent, then another pops up somewhere else at a later time. First it was cocaine in the 1980s, followed promptly by the crack epidemic, then methamphetamine at the turn of the century. Now it’s heroin. What does the future hold?
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