Heroin use along with other highly addictive opiates is on the rise in the US. The report released by the National Office of Drug Control Policy has indicated that the drug has been detected in blood test taken from arrestees.

Heroin use is on the rise

Federal and local data suggest an uptick in heroin use in Colorado, a troubling development for local drug enforcement agencies and treatment programs.

One new federal drug use survey, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Annual Report, shows that street use of opiate drugs, including heroin and opiate-based prescription medicines such as oxycodone, has doubled between 2000 and 2011.

The report, released May 17 by the National Office of Drug Control Policy, tracks the blood test results of adult male arrestees in Denver and nine other U.S. cities. In Denver; Indianapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; and Minneapolis, the number of adult male arrestees testing positive for opiates, including heroin and prescription painkillers, rose from 3 percent to 4 percent in 2000 to 8 percent to 10 percent in 2011.

Source: Denver Post

Many users prefer to smoke pills

The use of legal prescription drugs such as Oxycontin is also an epidemic in the US.

Many addicts doctor shop at pain relief clinics in Florida where the drug is prescribed without any controls.

Addicts and dealers then take the drugs back to their home states to use and or sell the drugs.

Little is being done to stop the epidemic. Clearly the war on drugs is ineffective as law enforcement agencies can do little to stem the flow of illegal drugs in the US.

It has been suggested by many that drugs need to legalised. Some countries where drugs have been legalised have seen a massive drop in the number of drug related crimes.

Legalising will free up the over crowded prison systems of many nations and place much needed finances into other areas such as health care and education.

People don’t become drug addicts because drugs are illegal, nor does the fact that drugs are illegal stop people from using them!