Health officials are expressing concerns after a survey-based report shows that the number of U.S. heroin user has grown by about 300,000 in the last ten years. It also shows that the increase of addiction was mainly among caucasians across all income levels.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has carried out the release of this report that is based on annual face-to-face surveys of about 67,000 Americans. This is also considered as US government’s main source of data gathering on the use of illegal drugs.
Some of the experts believe that this increase was driven by people switching from opioid painkillers to cheaper heroin. This is clearly indicating to an even bigger concern as the abuse of opioid painkillers and heroin in rural areas and small cities is also causing hepatitis C and HIV to spread in regions where they were uncommon two decades ago. New hepatitis C infections nationwide rose 150% between 2010 and 2013, with the largest increases in rural areas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This information has turned out to a serious matter of concern as similar incidents are believed to have been the driver of a shocking HIV outbreak in a small town of Austin in March where an estimated 450 people in the economically struggling town of 4,200 are addicted to prescription painkillers. Austin has only one doctor, no drug-treatment facilities and no substance-abuse counselors. So far, 170 in the area have tested positive for HIV.
William Cooke, Austin’s sole doctor, says it has been difficult to persuade mental-health providers and others who work with addicts to open offices in Austin, in part because providers didn’t think they would get reimbursed sufficiently.
The stigma attached to addiction and HIV is believed to have dissuaded some infected users from seeking services.
