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“Talking to people in recovery, I’ll ask them , ‘What was your drug of choice?’” Five years ago, it was meth, meth, meth and prescription drugs.
But for the last two or three years, (many) said it was heroin.”
- Mark Woodward Narcotics Bureau spokesman
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“I saw a guy today who was doing 300 milligrams a day of oxycodone,” Vorse said. “That’s a $300- to $400-a-day habit ... They can get the same effect at about a third of the cost by using heroin.” Vorse said prescription oxycodone is currently selling on the street for $1 to $1.25 per milligram. A frequent user might need as much as 100 milligrams a day just to ward off withdrawal symptoms. The rising use of black-market drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin appears to be an unintended, if perhaps unavoidable, consequence of concerted efforts to combat the significant increase in prescription drug abuse over the last two decades. They cited several changes in recent years. First, a new law that took effect in
November 2014 reclassified hydrocodone “combo” painkillers such as Lortab and Norco as Schedule II controlled dangerous substances. That meant doctors could not write prescriptions for more than 90 days Another new law enacted in 2014 expanded the ability of emergency medical personnel and family members to administer Naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdoses. Its increased availability is believed to be reducing the number of fatal overdoses among people who continue to abuse dangerous drugs. Yet another new law that took effect in November 2015 requires doctors to check the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program database at least and could no longer phone in prescriptions to pharmacists.
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