Heroin was the stigmatized street drug, used only by the very desperate. If you took heroin, then you were thought of as a low life. More than likely a dangerous criminal who stole TVs in the inner city to support your habit.
This image, true or false was what people thought.
As opposed to weed, in which we think of a giggling college student in a smokey basement with junk food. Or a hippie at Woodstock. The point is the heroin user evokes more fear than the weed user. Heroin users are the undesirable in our society.
Times are changing. The heroin user is getting a new image makeover!
Why did society have to rethink or re-imagine the heroin user?
According to the National Safety Council, everyday, 52 people die from opioid pain medications. Adults have been prescribed opioids by doctors and subsequently become addicted or moved from pills to heroin. The prescription pill epidemic is the cause of heroin's new image makeover. From desperate inner city addict - to a person in suburbia who accidentally got hooked to prescription pills by their doctor - and was forced to use heroin to stop withdrawal symptoms, when their prescriptions ran out.
Criminal user vs. victim user
But why should someone who gets hooked on heroin (no matter the cause) be treated differently? They shouldn't, but we live in reality, not a university classroom. The fact of the matter is - we are not going to fill our jail cells with desirable members of society. Once off heroin, this demographic can still resume their "proper place" in society.
The stigmatized inner city heroin user is undesired, the suburban victim heroin user, on the other hand gets a pass - hopefully to drug rehab.
Heroin rethink in action
Heroin rethink is now - suburban middle class with health care, they are victims of the prescription pill epidemic, and had to use heroin out of necessity! This was the only way this demographic can be justified as to NOT fill up jail cells, unlike other people - from the inner city who got addicted to heroin.
This blog is to not shame the suburban heroin user and take away their social privileges to goto rehab, (in this case) as opposed to jail - but to point out this double standard exists. And to just be aware of it, that is all. And to think, that drug addiction preconceptions and who is considered a criminal is not always what it seems.
If you or anyone else needs help with addiction, please call Solutions Recovery at 702-854-2404 or use our online form.
