I was a teenager in the early 90's and i'm horrified with that heroin come-back. I don't understand how it can be, especially in western countries. What the f. is happening ? I thought we dealt with that sh. long ago ?
There are some macro economic aspects as well making heroin cheap & powerful & readily available.
In what way do you think it was dealt with? As far as I know for actions like 'The War on Drugs' it's at least debatble whether they actually did reduce the amount of use of illigeal substances (let alone amount of related crime etc)?
They don't start taking those meds because it's cool. They start taking those meds because they don't have access to pain clinics; they don't understand that exercise is effective for many forms of pain (especially musculo-skeletal); that opioids should not be used for long term pain, etc. The meds become less effective if they're used for a long time, so people increase their dose. They become addicted to the meds, and need higher doses. A couple of things happen here.
1) Doctors restrict the meds. People then either buy illicit meds, which are stronger than they're expecting; or they buy heroin because it's easy enough to get.
2) People die from liver damage caused by the paracetamol that these pain meds are often mixed with. Partly we used to think that combining paracetamol and opioids meant we could use less of each (but that turns out to be untrue), and partly some people thought that mixing a poisonous substance in with the opioid would reduce abuse. (It sort of does, by killing the user.)
With things like MDMA this control over precursor chemicals does harm, because people use "research chemicals" or bath-salts instead, and there's not much evidence of safety for those. And there's some environmental impact as illegal loggers cut down trees in rain forest to get safrole oil.
The trail helped mitigate issues for the park quite a bit, but the heroin problem is still huge. In Santa Cruz, I think a lot of it stems from decades of tolerance and looking the other way.
Now when people are fed up,a lack of treatment options, ease with which those living on the street can get a meal and access to cheap drugs, as well as a judiciary that is at best revolving door perpetuates the problem.
It's much more likely that over-prescription of oxycontin is the root cause of any increase in heroin use.