Opioid addiction is an insidious series of compromises. At 16 years old, I would have laughed off any notion of trying heroin as absurd. "No, I would never do that!" But having recently tried marijuana, and open to exploring drugs I thought of as "safe," the 5mg Vicodin I found in the medicine cabinet didn't seem like such a big deal.
Well I tried it, and boy did I like it. Slowly, over time, I ran the gamut of different strength pharmaceuticals, administered orally, intranasally, and even rectally.
Eventually, you develop a physical addiction. One day, you can't afford the $40 for an 80mg oxycontin that you need to get well, and you're staring down the barrel of a long night of withdrawals. But a small bag of heroin might cost $10 and last you a couple of days. And so it goes.
This is so true. My hometown wasn't far from Camden, NJ, the perfect place to go score heroin once you were out of money and could no longer afford prescription pills.
I had a friend even trick me once into driving into Camden for what I eventually realized was so he could buy heroin.
Meanwhile, Camden continues to be a place riddled with crime fueled by the money coming in from all the rich white surrounding towns buying Camden's drugs. It's a sad state of affairs.
A while back I saw something about heroin addition on the TV. There was an interview with a doctor. She basically said the same thing as you - none of her patients just decide to start heroin one day, they start on prescription opioids. Then their supply runs out...
Then they show videos from pharmaceutical companies from the 90s directed at doctors telling doctors to prescribe their opioids to all their patients (basically). It was basically like "30 million Americans have chronic pain... give them Oxycontin. It's totally safe."
I remember reading something similar about the pharmacy companies telling their doctors that oxycontin didn't cause addiction and therefore it was safer to prescribe than codeine etc:
Well I tried it, and boy did I like it. Slowly, over time, I ran the gamut of different strength pharmaceuticals, administered orally, intranasally, and even rectally.
Eventually, you develop a physical addiction. One day, you can't afford the $40 for an 80mg oxycontin that you need to get well, and you're staring down the barrel of a long night of withdrawals. But a small bag of heroin might cost $10 and last you a couple of days. And so it goes.