- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
Smack Epidemic: How Pain Killers are turning youth athletes into heroin addicts
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:25 pm
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:25 pm
quote:
Heroin is not new or chic, but its use and abuse are spiking. According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics, heroin-overdose deaths rose gradually from 2000 to '10 but then almost tripled in the following three years to 2.7 deaths per 100,000 people. Heroin use cuts across demographics. Young, old. Male, female. Wealthy, indigent. Urban, rural and, most of all, suburban. But public authorities devoted to prevention and law enforcement, from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), have been struck by a growing concentration in an unlikely subset of users: young athletes.
About a decade ago Jack Riley, the DEA's chief of operations, recognized that high school athletes were becoming "unwitting customers of the cartels," which target people susceptible to prescription-drug abuse. The number of addicts and overdose victims has grown substantially since then. "In the athletic arena, if anything can be likened to a weapon of mass destruction, it's heroin," Riley says. "It is that pervasive now."
While hard data for heroin use among young athletes are difficult to come by, the anecdotal evidence is abundant and alarming. A seven-month SI investigation found overdose victims in baseball, basketball, football, golf, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, volleyball and wrestling—from coast to coast. Riley saw this as a volunteer in a youth basketball league in St. Louis. He coached a player who, years after suffering an injury, succumbed to a heroin overdose. The cartels, Riley says, "have developed a strategy, with the help of street gangs, to put heroin in every walk of life. They recognize how vulnerable young athletes are."
??To understand the increasingly busy intersection of heroin and sports, it's essential first to understand the general path to the drug. According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a full 80% of all users arrive at heroin after abusing opioid painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. And according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, one in 15 people who take nonmedical prescription painkillers will try heroin within the next 10 years. While opioid painkillers can cost up to $30 per pill on the black market, heroin, which is molecularly similar, can be purchased for $5 a bag and provides a more potent high. "It's an easy jump," says Harris Stratyner, a New York City addiction specialist.
LINK
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:30 pm to Bench McElroy
It's not just athletes. I'm 27 and know dozens of well-educated, college friends from good families that have lost their shite with opiate addiction.
Buried 3 at this point.
Buried 3 at this point.
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:31 pm to Bench McElroy
Ok????????
Its not good news but not exactly alarming, or an epidemic.
Its not good news but not exactly alarming, or an epidemic.
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:34 pm to Bench McElroy
When I played high school football, basketball, and baseball if you got hurt or injured it was a hand full of Tylenol, some salt pills, apply atomic balm, and wrap it up.
Kids now a days. Reminds me of tweeter and lance off varsity blues.
Kids now a days. Reminds me of tweeter and lance off varsity blues.
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:35 pm to TheCaterpillar
quote:
know dozens of well-educated, college friends from good families that have lost their shite with opiate addiction
And yes very sad, right now I see bars/stix whatever you want to call them as the biggest problem in terms of drugs. Relatively inexpensive but very bad when mixed with alcohol.
I do not care if anyone does them once in a while but bartards and bar users everday in college are becoming more and more prevalent.
Posted on 6/20/15 at 11:38 pm to Bench McElroy
I don't think the article author knows what an epidemic is.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 8:14 am to TheCaterpillar
quote:
It's not just athletes. I'm 27 and know dozens of well-educated, college friends from good families that have lost their shite with opiate addiction.
Oxy is the devil.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 8:28 am to TheCaterpillar
quote:That seems disproportionately high for the population you described. Is there a certain area that they come from with extremely high addiction problems?
It's not just athletes. I'm 27 and know dozens of well-educated, college friends from good families that have lost their shite with opiate addiction.
Buried 3 at this point.
This post was edited on 6/21/15 at 8:30 am
Posted on 6/21/15 at 8:38 am to buckeye_vol
Just buried a friend yesterday to this same crap. Pain killers and stuff like that scare the hell at of me.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 9:14 am to Bench McElroy
My 67 year old mother is addicted to pain killers. It's horrible to watch once strict, strong willed but loving parents turn into strangers. My dad doesn't understand that she overdoses on purpose for the high that she is getting
Posted on 6/21/15 at 9:21 am to Bench McElroy
And once again, young men learn from an early age Drugs are dangerous and illegal, dismiss them from the School and get them help
They must learn true punishment
They must learn true punishment
Posted on 6/21/15 at 10:14 am to namvet6566
Only 22 and already buried two friends two painkiller overdoses. Ridiculous how someone can go from a very well off family with no problems to dead within a couple years because of just trying the heavy pk once.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 10:16 am to namvet6566
quote:
They must learn true punishment
Yes because this is always the answer to addiction problems. Did you even bother to read the entire article or were you lazy & only read the thread title?
Posted on 6/21/15 at 12:44 pm to buckeye_vol
quote:
That seems disproportionately high for the population you described. Is there a certain area that they come from with extremely high addiction problems?
Wealthy white kids at party schools. It was as easy to get a bottle of opiates as it was to get pot in college.
Mainly Ole Miss, Alabama, and Georgia.
They're not all close friends, just acquaintances. I have buried 1 close friend and a couple other acqaintances have passed. Usually it starts with xanax/benzos in my experience, moves to tabs/percs, then oxy in some form (hard to get now), then H.
This post was edited on 6/21/15 at 12:46 pm
Posted on 6/21/15 at 1:14 pm to TheCaterpillar
frick all that. Know 4 from my Graduating class that have died from heroine, one that I've helped as hard as I can to get her help and she's finally clean, and know tons more that have gone to rehab and/or still on it right now. I've never fricked around with Xanax but they're huge in my area and heroine is really catching on. shite is the devils drug, just pulls you in.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 1:15 pm to TheCaterpillar
quote:
It's not just athletes. I'm 27 and know dozens of well-educated, college friends from good families that have lost their shite with opiate addiction.
Were you in a fraternity?
Posted on 6/21/15 at 1:18 pm to SoFunnyItsNot
quote:
Only 22 and already buried two friends two painkiller overdoses. Ridiculous how someone can go from a very well off family with no problems to dead within a couple years because of just trying the heavy pk once.
That's the thing though man. Being well off means having expendable money and that can be a dangerous thing for a kid. A friend of mine broke his neck and got hooked on pk's. Then of course the money came in from his settlement and in a matter of 6 months he blew threw over $50,000 and moved on to heroin. That shite is a death sentence and it proved to be. As a society so many people are focused on taking weed off the streets and completely blind to the damage that painkillers, which can be legally acquired, are doing.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 1:24 pm to airportwhiskey
They know, but it brings in tons of money.
Posted on 6/21/15 at 1:44 pm to auzach91
I'm referring to your average citizen, not doctors and legislators.
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News