Posted on 05/16/2014 2:23:05 PM PDT by mgist
The horrific toll of America's heroin 'epidemic' BBC News, Chicago
Heroin abuse in the US has been spreading beyond inner cities, resulting in a sharp rise in addiction and death. Chicago is a hub for cheap, pure and plentiful heroin, much of it supplied by Mexican drug cartels.
Chicago's "L" train green line leads directly to the open-air drug markets on the city's west side.
As we travel the route with one of the addicts, Jason, he phones his contact. He wants two bags of heroin, each costing just $10 (£6). The dealer meets us, and within seconds two tiny bags are handed over.
This part of Chicago has been ground down by neglect, drugs and crime, and residents talk openly about the narcotics on sale.
Of the four people who stopped to ask what we were filming, all said they had taken heroin.
The police are here, but they seem to face daunting odds as the heroin abuse spreads.
Nearly half a million Americans are thought to be addicted to heroin. One woman we meet in a county jail - she was locked up for stealing to feed her habit - calls it an "epidemic".
"I don't think these police officers know how bad it is out there - I really don't," she says.
Heroin addiction is probably at its all-time high”
Back on Lower Wacker Drive, home to central Chicago's destitute for nearly a century, five heroin addicts are injecting in an underpass.
Some bleed as they repeatedly stab the needle in - desperately trying to force the light brown fluid into their bodies.
Greg can't find a vein and injects straight into his bicep - what he calls "muscling it".
"My arms are fried ," he says. "It sucks. This is what I have to do nine out of 10 times is muscle it because my arms are so trashed."
Greg and Stacey are sleeping rough.
Stacey first took heroin when she was just 11. Now the two of them live like husband and wife in this subterranean netherworld, partners, addicts and the parents of three young boys.
"The hardest thing is just not being there for them," says Greg. "I think about them every day. I try to just numb it with this dope but it's just hard, man."
Continue reading the main story
Much of the heroin supply comes from Mexico, where production has risen more than 600% in the last 10 years.
Heroin is often cheaper and easier to use than prescription drugs, some of which have become more expensive, harder to obtain and harder to abuse - they now come in versions that are not so easy to grind down to snort or dissolve.
Last month Mexican authorities arrested Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the suspected boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
The Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) named him last year as the city's Public Enemy Number One.
Much of the heroin supply comes from Mexico, where production has risen more than 600% in the last 10 years.
Heroin is often cheaper and easier to use than prescription drugs, some of which have become more expensive, harder to obtain and harder to abuse - they now come in versions that are not so easy to grind down to snort or dissolve.
Last month Mexican authorities arrested Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the suspected boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
The Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) named him last year as the city's Public Enemy Number One.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) estimates that the cartel supplies as much as 70% of the illegal drugs sold and used on Chicago's streets.
But it's not clear that the arrest will help stem the flow of heroin, especially if demand in the US remains strong.
Increasingly, it's not just the inner-city junkies who are using heroin.
Chicago police make a heroin arrest The recent death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from an accidental overdose of a mix of drugs including heroin drew attention to something the police have known for a while - heroin now crosses all boundaries.
"Heroin addiction is probably at its all-time high," says Special Agent Jack Riley, the DEA's regional head.
"I've been doing this for 30 years in virtually every corner of this country and if anything can be likened to a weapon of mass destruction on a family, on a community, on society, it's heroin.
"I just don't understand why people across the board don't see its danger. Social services are overwhelmed, our healthcare services are overwhelmed, yet Mexican organised crime and street gangs make billions from it."
The biggest increase in users is among the young.
Research suggests that nearly 34,000 12-17 year olds are now trying heroin for the first time each year, as the drug becomes cheaper and more readily available than ever.
Many live beyond inner cities, in small towns or in the country.
Two fresh-faced victims of heroin: Steven Lunardi (right) has been clean for more than a year, but Stephanie Chiakas (left) died of an overdose, aged 17
What the government found out not only was trying to control social behavior in the use of alcohol unworkable but were simply blown away by the staggering amount of money enriching criminals (Seagram's was created on the money accumulated by Canadian criminals involved in providing alcohol during Prohibition)when the greedy bastards in government realized how much money they could then fritter away by enacting the 21st Amendment which didn't legalize alcohol use but merely nullified the 18th Amendment which made its use illegal.
Alcohol causes more upheaval, cost to society in drug driving accidents, loss of work certainly more than marijuana does.
And yet, not being able to control it's use and combined with the huge mountains of tax money it generates, the societal cost, moral implications be 'dammed', alcohol is a substance that is in no way ever a threat of becoming 'verboten'.
Nevertheless, the dilemma on whether or not to legalize hard substances like heroin, despite having it favorably compared side-by-side with other legal substances inherently lethal is an issue, resolution reminiscent of a 'Pandora's Box' of unknown repercussions. letha
Our tax money supports the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine protection of Afghan opium farmers. Forty years ago the Afghanis were exporting mostly hashish, just like Lebanon and Pakistan were, but the CIA, KGB, GRU, Mosad, Paki’s ISI, British MI6, Saudi royal family, those guys all hate the hash.
We pay a lot of graft money to our staunch ally, the wonderful Karzai administration, as well. Not only do we finance the fake “war on drugs,” mostly justifying the militarization of domestic police agencies, we pay for a whole lot of ongoing warfare to support the heroin trade.
That’s just the way it is, and the way it has to be, I suppose. Who am I to judge?
Current laws aren’t respected, and our government is complicit. As this epidemic is taking place, drug policy orgs are sending messages that drugs such as marijuana are legit because they are legal, and even beneficiary because they are medicinal. I saw an article in a psychiatry medical magazine touting the benefits of mushrooms, written by a “Phd”. The messages out there are deceptive.
Remember that heroin turned China into a slave nation, and heroin is was keeps the peasants in countries such as Iran sedate. Our national leaders have the blood of American children on their hands.
The US military is protecting poppy fields in Afghanistan.
Heroin today is dangerously pure, and cheaper and easier to get than beer.
Soldiers are getting heavy opiates and other heavy drugs prescribed to them by their doctors. Obama’s military is turning out drug and porn addicts.
The promotion of meds by the Pharmacies is so powerfull, doctors have a secret addiction epidemic. I have a dr friend that unnessecarily takes Adderal. According to her, they all do something
What America isn’t understanding is that this is social engineering at it’s finest. Those who laundered money for the cartels, has been pushing drug legalization, including heroin since the 90’s.
This 2004 article is prophetic.
http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-hidden-soros-agenda-drugs-money-the-media-and-political-power/
Corrupt Republican Mayors and city councilmen have ran this great American city into the ground!
Gotta agree. I am not a big fan of much of the libertarian agenda, but ending the war on drugs is one I think they get right.
Creating and empowering an ever growing police state to combat drug use hasn't worked. The only way it could work is to make the penalties of drug use/sale so draconian that the American public would never go for it. Since we'll never actually take the steps necessary to "win" the war on drugs, there is no point in fighting it. In many ways this is no different than half hearted military engagements. If we, as a society, decide to wage war on something we should go all out and destroy the "enemy" with unrestrained vengeance. We aren't going to do that when it comes to drugs.
In the end we are just creating a black market where one need not exist.
Prohibition in general is a bad idea. The government has no business trying to enforce social order laws. If a heroin user becomes a junkie and commits crimes to feed their habit, arrest them for the crimes they committed. We already have laws on the books for that.
Nope, all the feds have to do is seal the borders and beef up the Coast Guard. Drug use would decline overnight and we can defund jack-booted departments such as the ATF and DEA and stop militarizing our local cops.
So Chicago has a high crime and heroin addiction rate.
It also has Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, Quentin Young, Rep. Danny the Red Davis, Ambulance chaser par excellance Jesse Jackson, (his felon son), Al The Greatest Con Man of the Century Sharpton, Rekzo, Pritzker, Ayers, Farrakhan, Quinn, Comrade Schakowsky, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama, and his poisonous drug addiction programs known as “Obamacare”, “WelfareCare”, and “I’m The Master Care”.
Now you know why The Big C is down the crapper and always will be. Heroin addiction is only one of their problems.
At least the undertakers and grave diggers have guaranteed jobs for life.
That’s the problem with the Libertarian agenda. They are completely ignorant of international issues and threats to the point of being dangerous.
Even adult conservatives on this forum are decieved by drug legalization advocates talking points, most children won’t stand a chance.
Think for a minute. Do you really beieve that the murderous cartels, who have no problem killing innocent women and children are going to bring their profitable products into a regulated, competitive market, and sing koombaya? They murder their competitors, and pay off government officials. That’s how they operate. The Muslim Brotherhood, is a heroin cartel comprised of sociopaths.
The Fed may be arming the Sinaloa cartels, but they are imprisoning private growers, even in places where legalization took place.
Drug legalization was never about personal liberties. It was about acceptance of drugs. Drugs provided by the cartels, and ease of laundering money by banks.
The drug cartels destroyed Latin America with corruption. Venezuelans arrogantly thought it could never happen to them.
American should be terrified with what is happening, the media silence is even more ominous. Take care of your families.
We are under the same yoke that China was under during the opium wars. This is not accidental or by chance.
If I thought that really warring against drug use worked, I’d be its biggest supporter. However, it is working about as well as prohibition did back in the thirties, with its dealers and government officials getting rich back then too.
What did work back,when opium was huge was treatment and keeping addicts stable and functional until they were able to deal their addiction. This will work today.
And because the price of heroin and cocaine went sky high, that gave the pushers the incentive to develop something that could be produced and sold cheaply and was basically instantly addictive.
Crystal meth and crack.
Worked fine with cigarettes and booze. Prohibition against alcohol (ie, a war on alcohol) didn't stop it, it only created a black market where none existed. We didn't use to have a major problem with a cigarette black market, but now that we've taxed them to the point of insanity we've created a vicious black market for them attracting all the worst actors imaginable.
Social order and prohibition laws just don't work very well. Decriminalize drugs and let people sink or swim of their own free will. There will probably be initial spike in use, but in not very long the health nazi's will turn their attention to these things and make them unfashionable and uncool.
That’s the problem with the Libertarian agenda. They are completely ignorant of international issues and threats to the point of being dangerous.
Yup, I agree. I find the libertarian isolationist agenda naive and idiotic. I could never be a libertarian because of it. If we ever elected a libertarian President we'd end up getting all the bad foreign policy and defense positions enacted (something a President can do on their own to a large degree) and none of the deep cuts in social welfare spending true libertarians (ie, not the drug addled hippie types) believe in.
I'll add another problem with libertarians that I've observed, there are far too many conspiracy nuts in their ranks. When their worldview of things don't pan out, they tend to turn to grandious, nefarious conspiracy theories to explain why their ideas don't seem to work out in the real world. Too many libertarians tend to not just read sites like Zerohedge, InfoWars, etc, but actually believe everything posted there. So within a few minutes of talking with them the discussion degenerates into a giant fiat currency conspiracy, or that Jews are secretly manipulating everything, or Russia/China won't behave because of the mean ole' USA, etc.
Look no further than your friendly government
Good article but fentanyl is not heroin and is not morphine.
It was already here before that, but yes I have no doubt it opened that door wider.
Bottom line is, until this country grows up, get’s over the pop culture addiction, stops trying to live the wacka wacka good time California 60’s/70’s porno/druggie lifestyle, it’s just going to get worse.
BINGO! When you realize that every recent calamity or faux pas under Obama such as Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Syria, Libya, Egypt, the christians being killed, the drug legalization, the Putin "give me more time" remark, the private "deals" with Iran, the Venezuelan civil uprising, Soros openly dictacting US policy, Honduras, etc., are ALL involve the drug CARTELS who are getting support, money, and weapons from the US government. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda are heroin cartels. Ukraine is known to be a major drug trafficking hub from Russia to Europe. The same way Mexico is the the US. It is rumored Soros had his politicians in place to cover the cartels he launders money for, and Putin isn't going to have it. He wants to keep control of his market share. Just one example. http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1077895.html That is what is going on.
Understand that this is being imposed upon us. We are under the influence of the $Trillion cartels in ways that are beyond most people’s comprehension.
war?
We are giving peace a chance......
Certainly.
Hitting bottom is how God deals with us. We usually aren’t really open to really dealing with stuff until that point.
That’s part of the problem of the well-intentioned drug war. It’s meant to help keep people off drugs, but one of the things it is doing is preventing us from hitting our bottom. It may actually, because of this, be aiding and abetting getting people addicted in the first place.
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