Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Heroin overdose a public health concern.... WHAT?

Make sure you wash your hands well and take your vitamins, wouldn't want anyone catching a heroin overdose.



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said his agency was stepping up efforts to stem sharp increases in deadly heroin overdoses, trafficking in the drug and abuse of prescription narcotics at the root of what he called an "urgent public health crisis."

As part of that campaign, Holder reiterated the Obama administration's call for more law enforcement agencies to train and equip personnel with an overdose-reversal medication called naloxone.

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy issued a similar plea to police and fire departments last month.

Holder said 17 states and the District of Columbia have amended their laws to increase access to naloxone, a blocking agent that can reverse the effects of an overdose and help restore breathing.

He said emergency use of naloxone had resulted in more than 10,000 overdose reversals since 2001.

Still, fatal heroin overdoses have increased 45 percent from 2006 to 2010, with 3,038 such deaths reported that year, and the numbers are believed to still be on the rise, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The rising level of heroin use in recent years stems from a corresponding epidemic in the abuse of prescription opiate-based painkillers, such as oxycodone, DEA officials say. Deaths from overdoses of such drugs numbered more than 16,600 in 2010.

Many individuals who start out abusing oxycodone turn eventually to heroin as they build up a tolerance to the pain pills and find that they can buy heroin far more cheaply than prescription medications on the black market, experts say.

Meanwhile, trafficking in heroin, the bulk of it smuggled into the United States from Mexico, has climbed in conjunction with increasing demand.

"When confronting the problem of substance abuse, it makes sense to focus attention on the most dangerous types of drugs. And right now, few substances are more lethal than prescription opiates and heroin," Holder said in a video message posted on Monday on the Justice Department's website.

Holder said the DEA was leading a federal enforcement crackdown, and cited a 320 percent increase in the amount of heroin seized by U.S. authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border between 2008 and 2013.

The federal government also is enlisting the help of physicians, teachers, police and community leaders to boost support for substance abuse education, prevention and treatment, Holder said.

He said the DEA was focusing such efforts in regions experiencing a particularly high incidence of heroin abuse, such as in northern Ohio, where numbers of heroin-related deaths had recently jumped four-fold.

National attention on heroin abuse was riveted by the case of acclaimed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead from an accidental drug overdose in his Manhattan apartment last month, a needle still in his arm.

An autopsy determined the performer succumbed to acute intoxication from a mixture of heroin, cocaine and other drugs in his system.

This is being pushed by the same people, with the same money and the same "research", that push "gun control" as a public health issue.

I've heard the heroin users that die from overdose have a zero recidivism rate.

Let 'em croak. No sympathy here for heroin users.

Maybe we should be throwin' lead instead of duckin' the rocks. This administration contradicts itself on a daily basis.

heroin use is growing cause of the crack down on opiate pain pills.....on tyhe street once you get past using a few pills here and there heroin is cheaper.....most of it is just cause idiots chasing a high....

some of it is a direct result of .gov bullchit....ever since i got the chronic pain label even though ive done everything on the up and up its hard to find a family practitioner besides my main one to talk to me....last time he happened to be on vacation when i needed my scripts refilled i was put in limbo for a week while his colleagues at the hospital ive always gone to took a week to decided they were gonna write me a bridge script to just get me by till he got back cause they refused to deal with me cause of that lil label....never mind my dose had been constant for 18 months, never mind i had only ever gone to that hospital for my pain meds...and i took my last pain pill 2 hours before they got the phone call saying i got the bridge script...i took that last pill not knowing if 18 hours latter i was gonna be hugging a toliet going through with drawls...

hell i had a bag stolen while on vacation a couple years ago and had to go through DT's while on vacation because no doc i could find would touch me, they wouldnt even give my family doc a call on a thursday afternoon and because their government in their wise decission made it so that my doc couldnt just call in a script for me at the nearest pharmacy, i had to have a hard copy

yeah 98% of the heroin problem is jack arses but some of them are cause the way we deal with chronic pain is a [bleep] joke in this country....

i have seen first hand the horrors of what heroin will do to a kid. A kid that was in my nephews class in grade school, stand out kid in terms of athletics, academics and personality from a great set of caring parents who were very active in the kids life, started to experiment in high school. before it became obvious to what was going on he had already gotten hooked. his life right now consist of a small concrete room with bars. hell this kid could be one of my own, it is just tragic and i pray everyday that my kids are able to stay away from this [bleep].

Couple this effort by Holder with the crackdown along the southern border and Holder will have it all under control in two snaps of a finger.

Obama and holder are the problem not the solution.

+1

Charles Darwin had it right ... just natural selection at work.

See I knew it . Obama an Holder to the resque. Now your safe

Funny, I thought heroin came from Afghanistan.

Afganistan is the main source but also comes out of Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, China, Mexico and Columbia......

If they drop dead then they can't vote Democrat.

Bullchit! Gimmecrats are granted at least seven votes in the afterlife.

The majority of heroin deaths in America is young white kids. Young, 15-20 years old. Girls as well as boys. Solidly middle class but young and stupid....and worst of all, clueless as to how dangerous heroin is.

No different than when weed was everywhere and many tried it, and yes inhaled it. Only heroin can kill quickly.

It's far more common that you think, and your kids know it as well. Make sure they understand it's a death drug and not "cool" to try it.

The natural selection nonsense I'll write off as...well...not really called for.

everyone says that till its their kid or grandkid then the majority change their tune...

I regret the passing of most anyone but I sometimes enjoy reading an obiturary; some signal a small improvement in the gene pool. I suppose Dems might consider such events a justifiable late term abortion.

Democrats firmly believe in one man, one vote even when the vote is illegal or the man is dead.

I don't believe the majority of folks understand that heroin is now as easy to get as weed, and cheap as well.

You have kids, sit down with them, weed is one thing, booze is one thing but heroin will kill them.

Almost 300 kids in New England, just good neighborhood kids, that thought I'll try it....and died.

One was a friend of my Daughter...young girl...not even a traffic ticket. Tried it in a nightclub in Boston and was dead before she hit the floor.

I'm being straight, don't dismiss the availability of heroin in middle class towns in America.

It is everywhere. I talk to my kids about it, and other drugs, as much as I can.

Our county's OD rate is ratcheting up year after year and there is no end in sight. I can't say what the ultimate cause is, but it is bizarre to me that people keep trying this schit. It is not a big secret where the life path of heroin users leads???