Addiction to heroin has skyrocketed in the United States, with women and the middle class becoming more addicted to the substance. These demographics were once believed less likely to take drugs, according to the latest report released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday.
From 2002 to 2013, heroin use went up 63 percent, while deaths as a result of heroin overdose quadrupled in the same time period. About 517,000 cases were reported for heroin use or heroin-related dependence in 2014, an astounding 150 percent increase from 2007. Over 8,200 people, meanwhile, suffered an overdose of heroin in 2013.
Heroin substance abuse is the highest among men living in poverty in a city, however, there has been a significant increase of use among women and groups working in high income brackets with private insurance.
"What's most striking and troubling is that we're seeing heroin diffusing throughout society to groups that it hasn't touched before," said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, via NBC News. "We're seeing heroin affecting people in urban and rural areas, white, black and Hispanic, low middle and high income. We're seeing heroin diffusing throughout society but we can turn this around."
Falling into the addiction is complicated, the experts said, but the recent increase may be rooted in prescription painkillers, which deliver the same chemical reaction in the brain as heroin.
"As a doctor who started my career taking care of patients with HIV and other complications from injection drugs, it's heartbreaking to see injection drug use making a comeback in the U.S.," Frieden further said, according to LA Times.
The risk to other health problems increases with this problem, as the rate for HIV infections, car accidents and newborns addicted to opiates have seen its rise as well.
The experts are calling on reforms for prescription painkillers, a tougher crackdown on the sale of heroin, as well as better treatment programs for those who have become addicted to the substance.
