CDC: Heroin use continues to grow – 13WHAM ABC Rochester New York

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the report, which is based on yearly face-to-face surveys of about 67,000 Americans, on Tuesday.

This explains the surging sense of euphoria that many people feel when they inject the drug straight into the bloodstream.

A new report confirms that there has been a dramatic increase in heroin use in the United States. “I think as people see how risky this is, it will disappear over time – at least, that’s what I’ve seen in my experience”. Men are still bigger users, NPR notes, but women are catching up.

“We do have the ability to deal with it on a treatment level”, he said. Edward Markey, D-Mass., in a statement. “We’re seeing an increase throughout many segments of society”, he added.

He advised that prescribing opioid painkillers should be reformed, and that ways must be established to plug the easy circulation of cheap heroin, while addicts must be weaned from the habit.

“It’s basically the same drug”, Dr. Frieden told CNN. At the same time heroin availability went up, there was a “decline in price and an increase in purity”.

As heroin addiction deepens, many users turn to needles for a more intense high.

The government report also mirrors trends seen in earlier studies, which noted marked increases in heroin use in people who are white and living outside of major cities, said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University epidemiologist who researches drug abuse issues. “The CDC’s Vital Signs illustrates two significant factors partly fueling that alarming number – the misuse of prescription drugs and a related increase in heroin use”.

Rates of past-year heroin abuse or dependence and heroin-related overdose deaths in the United States, 2002-2013. Overdoses have almost quadrupled since 2002, the officials said. In Baltimore, overdose deaths have risen 23% in the past year, Wen said. In a telephone interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, CDC Director Tom Frieden said 60 percent of the deaths were attributed to heroin and at least one other drug, usually codeine, according to lead author of the report, Chris Jones, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Public Health Strategy and Analysis. Thirty-nine people in Baltimore died from the fatal combination from January to March.

The CDC’s new report bears this out.

And New Jersey’s death rate keeps climbing, to 7.5 per 100,000 people in 2014, according to the Medical Examiner.

Those addicted to opioid painkillers were found to be 40 times more likely to be addicted to heroin.

Although the CDC approved grants to 34 states for the monitoring programs, it had money to fund only 17. It said an estimated 517,000 people abused or were addicted to heroin in 2013.

The country also should help more people access treatment, Frieden said.

He said more patients are being treated with Suboxone, which is the brand name for buprenorphine, and Vivitrol, both of which are drugs used to treat opioid addiction. Learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdose.