The United States has (somewhat) finally started to pay attention to the heroin issue taking place within the borders of the country.. Perhaps not soon enough. And without solutions.
A few months ago, I wrote a pained and detailed post about the towns that dread sundown here in America.. those little once quaint villages that are now filled with medics rushing to sites of addicts and houses of those whose hearts are about to stop beating because of drug use. It has affected me personally. Friends and even family .. It is a problem as big as any other. And we are being destroyed from within.
As USA TODAY reports,
Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the source of heroin sold here that caused scores of overdoses, including at least three deaths. More than 200 people in four states have been victims of what law enforcement officials are calling a supercharged form of the sedative, and one additional person died in Indiana.
“We’re working very closely to find the source dealer,” said Police Chief Tom Synan ofNewtown, Ohio, who heads the law enforcement task force for the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition. He said local, state and federal authorities are combining their forces to investigate the source or sources. “We don’t have anything solid to go off of.”
The toll here has risen to an estimated 78 overdoses Tuesday and Wednesday alone and an estimated 174 overdose cases in emergency rooms in less than a week.
Even more,
No samples of the Cincinnati-area drugs are available to test yet, according to Synan and Cincinnati Police Lt. Col. Mike John. The victims could have injected heroin mixed with the potent painkiller fentanyl or the mega-potent animal opioid carfentanil.
Carfentanil, an analgesic for large animals including elephants, was discovered in July in the region’s heroin stream. In the memo, Black said carfentanil is believed to be the cause of the overdose spike the city is seeing now.
When an officer doesn’t know if a person has overdosed on heroin, it’s OK to hit them with a dose or two of naloxone, said Dr. Erik Kochert, program director in York Hospital’s emergency room. Police in the Pennsylvania county of almost 450,000 already have administered the opioid antidote almost 250 times this year.
Yes, this is happening.
And yes, even if you’re not going to admit it, it’s on your own street. In your own town. At your doorstep. Perhaps, even in your own home.
Just this Friday, my local paper reported on two heroin related deaths in a hotel room in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The two killed by the horror: A girl in her 20s, a male in his early 30s. Gone before life had a chance to change.
It is not a problem regulated to a degenerate group. Get over that line of thought in your head. It is professionals, families.. moms and dads. People who are once filled with life and able to hold a conversation, but not just meager peasants begging and stealing for another fix. They don’t credit their own humanity by what they do, but they are also victims of a problem that so few recognized until it was too late.
And now, with the new concoction killing, the towns that fear sundown will need body bags in big numbers before it’s over.
