Searching for Solutions as Heroin Claims 10,000 Lives
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.
The New Hampshire primaries has drawn renewed attention to the vast heroin addiction that has swept not just the Granite State, but the entire country.
Heroin addiction is nothing new, but the recent shift from the inner city to suburbia and rural America has drawn not only attention in an election year, but criticism that the crisis was ignored when it was an “urban” problem. The epidemic, once labeled a “War on Drugs,” is now deemed a public health crisis, something that’s brought a new emphasis on treatment and prevention versus enforcement and incarceration.
Criticism notwithstanding, heroin overdoses have killed more than 10,000 people nationwide in 2015, and the current crises is drawing new scrutiny toward opioid prescription use. Now policy makers, medical providers, and politicians are urgently looking for new answers to tackle a growing problem.
On Tuesday, the Director of National Drug Control Policy, Michael Botticelli, announced an increase of nearly $1.1 billion for prevention and treatment in combating the prescription opioid and heroin use epidemic.
What changes in U.S. policy can help contain the heroin crisis? For answers, we turn to Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy and director of the Crime Reduction and Justice Initiative at New York University’s Marron Institute. He is also editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis.
What you’ll learn from this segment:
- What policy changes are currently be considered.
- The role that physicians are playing in this problem.
- Whether changes in enforcement and/or decriminalization would aid the problem.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.