We’re halfway through 2015 and heroin’s presence in Maryland is indisputable. In fact, according to many it’s not just a problem, it’s an epidemic.
In 2013, there were 464 heroin-related overdose deaths, which outnumbered 387 homicides, representing a 95 percent increase in heroin-related overdose deaths since 2010. Yet the numbers continued to rise in 2014, with heroin taking the lives of about 578 people, nearly 56% of the state’s total alcohol and drug-related deaths.
But when and why did Maryland’s heroin usage begin?
Beginnings of the Heroin Epidemic
While the data isn’t readily nor easily available, it looks like somewhere around 2010 was the beginning of the end. One report in Maryland saw a 41 percent increase in heroin deaths between 2011 and 2012, following four years of decline, and another report from Washington saw the number of criminal suspects who tested positive for heroin jump from 842 in 2007 to 2,251 in 2012, a 167 percent increase. That increase is astounding, and its effects are nationwide..
Roots of the Heroin Epidemic
Heroin is an opioid, a type of painkiller defined by the National Association on Drug Abuse as those that reduce the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affect those brain areas controlling emotion, which diminishes the effects of a painful stimulus. Some of the most common opioids include Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet, which have also been known to lead to deaths. In fact, in 2010 prescription pain killers were involved in 16,600 overdose deaths, more than four times as many as in 2000.
But then, over the last few years, these prescription opioids have been harder to obtain, due partially to an increase in legislative restrictions. However, the cause here isn’t so important. What’s important is the effect. Supply decreased, and opioid street prices increased, meaning that the poor souls addicted to opioids had to find some other, comparable substitute. And unfortunately, that substitute was heroin.
Within Maryland, heroin supply is relatively concentrated between the urban areas of Baltimore (sometimes consider heroin capital of the country) and Annapolis.
Today’s Heroin Users
Heroin users used to be commonly referred to as junkies. Whether that is right or wrong, the point remains: Today’s heroin users aren’t your stereotypical junkies. They could be anyone. In fact, while many current users were once prescription opioid users, they could be anyone. There have been increases in the white American population, in the female population, in suburban and rural (instead of the typically urban) areas. But perhaps most troubling is heroin’s presence in the lives of young adults, where its use continues to rise.
And unfortunately, in Maryland, the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA predicted in its February situation report, that “the
