This weekend marks a year since Philip Seymour Hoffman died, with a needle in his arm, in his apartment in New York City. And today there’s a treatment for heroin addiction that actually works. But we’re not using it yet. An in depth article by Jason Cherkis [@jasoncherkis] takes a deep dive into the heroin problem explaining why heroin addiction treatment is stuck in a “scientific dark age” and standard treatment for heroin addicts is not all that different today than it was decades ago: willpower over chemistry.
The most widely used solutions are still either 12-step program, or a rigid 30-day drug detox center. The majority of the time neither are successful, according to the yearlong investigation by the Cherkis of The Huffington Post.
BUT! Researchers say they have found a treatment that works in the form of Suboxone, a newer alternative to the controversial methadone detox method — and barely any doctors are using it. Meanwhile, the heroin epidemic continues to get worse. As a matter of fact, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports heroin related deaths doubled between 2010 and 2012.
Between 2002 and 2012, the number of people who reported using heroin within the previous year increased by 265,000. Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Read the full 8-chapter article, Dying To Be Free at Huffington Post.
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