Heroin Gaining
Popularity, Especially Among Teenagers
According
to studies done by the U.S. federal government heroin production
in the world has more than doubled since the 1980's. This has resulted
in much lower street prices for very pure heroin, as
well as a much wider availablity.
Heroin
abuse, originally only noticeably problematic and wide spread in
densely populated urban areas, has now spread to much smaller cities,
suburbs, and rural areas. This recent explosion in wide spread availability
has caused an increase in the popularity of smoking or snorting
the drug, and without the stigma that goes along with intravaneous
use, more and more people are experimenting with heroin.
Research
done by the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in 1999 has
reported that almost 50 percent of new heroin users are under the
age of 25, and half of these are under the age of 18. This is an
insidious trend, most likely caused by the increase in popularity
of smoking or snorting heroin, this usage being deemed "safe"
by most users.
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