Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides

[bwframe]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...st-time-cdc-data-show/?utm_term=.8f1f407ac605

In a grim milestone, more people died from heroin-related causes than from gun homicides in 2015. As recently as 2007, gun homicides outnumbered heroin deaths by more than 5 to 1.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Hmmm...I thought there was already a thread on this but I can't find it now. Must have been a similar story linked in an existing thread.

 

[hoosierdoc]

We should legalize guns and outlaw heroin!

 

[2A_Tom]

It is time to call an end to the war on drugs! Ask any Libertarian.

 

[M67]

Damn high capacity drug baggies

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Illicit drug labs seldom have great quality control. The "additives" like Fentanyl are extremely potent. Combination = lots of ODs. Without Narcan, I bet that number would easily triple if not more.

 

[2A_Tom]

Had to look up Narcan. Do officers carry it or is it EMT only?

 

[Fargo]

Had to look up Narcan. Do officers carry it or is it EMT only?

Many officers do, it varies from dept to dept. that said, it is a little more than a Band-Aid. I see a lot of Narcaned people OD again and die in a couple days later.

Heroin retires the brain fairly quickly in a lot of people. It isn't long until being high is more important than living.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Had to look up Narcan. Do officers carry it or is it EMT only?

I don't know that all officers do, but at least some of our uniformed guys do. That particular innovation came about after I left the street and I don't know much about it.

 

[KLB]

It is time to call an end to the war on drugs! Ask any Libertarian.

You'd probably have fewer deaths if you legalized it.

 

[KLB]

I don't know that all officers do, but at least some of our uniformed guys do. That particular innovation came about after I left the street and I don't know much about it.

A lot of departments around Chicago are carrying it now according to news reports

 

[Fargo]

You'd probably have fewer deaths if you legalized it.

A huge number of the opiate addicts were created with perfectly legal prescribed opiates. I don't know how further legalizing it is going to lead to fewer ODs.

The issue of hot batch deaths is kind of secondary in the whole thing. Sure it kills some faster than they otherwise would have died, but if you're shooting heroin you are on your way to your overdose.

 

[hoosierdoc]

we just got a heroin overdose who received narcan by police

 

[KLB]

A huge number of the opiate addicts were created with perfectly legal prescribed opiates. I don't know how further legalizing it is going to lead to fewer ODs.

The issue of hot batch deaths is kind of secondary in the whole thing. Sure it kills some faster than they otherwise would have died, but if you're shooting heroin you are on your way to your overdose.

Heroin is far from a new drug. Why are deaths increasing now if the quality of the drug is not a major cause?

People are going to take drugs. People are going to get addicted to stuff. It is how some people are.

Outlawing those things does little to stop any of that from happening. It does put a criminal element to the cycle, which includes both a violent element and a quality one. A legal product would remove much of both elements.

 

[Fargo]

Heroin is far from a new drug. Why are deaths increasing now if the quality of the drug is not a major cause?

People are going to take drugs. People are going to get addicted to stuff. It is how some people are.

Outlawing those things does little to stop any of that from happening. It does put a criminal element to the cycle, which includes both a violent element and a quality one. A legal product would remove much of both elements.

Fatalities are increasing now in a large part because a huge wave of opiate addicts has been created with legal prescribed painkillers.

According to the article, barely a third of the opiate fatalities are from heroin. Where do you think those other two thirds come from?

In my opinion in, the root cause of the spike in fatalities has relatively little to do with heroin itself. It has much more to do with a legion of prescription painkiller created addicts who can no longer afford their pill habit.

Hot batches create spikes of fatalities, but I don't think they really have much of a net effect on total fatality.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Heroin is far from a new drug. Why are deaths increasing now if the quality of the drug is not a major cause?

Not only is it more powerful, it's also cheaper. Economics always plays into these things, with the cheaper the vice the more customers it can collect.

 

[fullauto 45]

I have no sympathy for those that do or those that sell drugs. Especially those that sell. I say exterminate dealers with extreme prejudice. That may sound harsh, but I have seen what it does to a family first hand. My cousin OD'd on heroin last year, she died. She was 55 years old. It shocked me, as I knew she smoked weed, but never knew she did anything else. To top that off, her son has OD'd twice, once before she died and once after. He is brain mush now. He would have been better off to die, sad to say, but yeah. This crap seems to be easy to get and cheap. Start terminating the up line, and eventually you will find the head of the hydra.

 

[hoosierdoc]

Heroin is far from a new drug. Why are deaths increasing now if the quality of the drug is not a major cause?

People are going to take drugs. People are going to get addicted to stuff. It is how some people are.

Outlawing those things does little to stop any of that from happening. It does put a criminal element to the cycle, which includes both a violent element and a quality one. A legal product would remove much of both elements.

People got hooked on pain pills because they were very easy to obtain, now they are harder to obtain. Heroin is cheaper. The heroin suppliers are adding synthetic fentanyl and upping the potency of it. Just sad.

 

[KLB]

People got hooked on pain pills because they were very easy to obtain, now they are harder to obtain. Heroin is cheaper. The heroin suppliers are adding synthetic fentanyl and upping the potency of it. Just sad.

It is very sad.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

I don't know that all officers do, but at least some of our uniformed guys do. That particular innovation came about after I left the street and I don't know much about it.

It is issued to every patrol officer on every district, at least at IMPD. And it is used somewhere in the city almost daily.